A paper published in the Journal of Climate finds from 800,000 observations a significant decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains. CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period and according to AGW theory, downwelling IR should have instead increased over this period.
According to the authors,

“The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”

The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”

The paper also finds a negative trend in precipitable water vapor, as do other global datasets, again the opposite of predictions of AGW theory that warming allegedly from CO2 will increase precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere to allegedly amplify warming by 3-5 times. Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?

A trend analysis was applied to a 14-yr time series of downwelling spectral infrared radiance observations from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) located at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) site in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. The highly accurate calibration of the AERI instrument, performed every 10 min, ensures that any statistically significant trend in the observed data over this time can be attributed to changes in the atmospheric properties and composition, and not to changes in the sensitivity or responsivity of the instrument. The measured infrared spectra, numbering more than 800 000, were classified as clear-sky, thin cloud, and thick cloud scenes using a neural network method. The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site. The AERI data also show many statistically significant trends on annual, seasonal, and diurnal time scales, with different trend signatures identified in the separate scene classifications. Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions. Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.

How many ways can AGW predictions be proven wrong. Let me count the ways.
This appears to be one of the most significant findings in a long time. Anticipating the criticisms, what are the holes or weaknesses in the study?

It would be very interesting to compare with the previous 14 – 15 year period; especially the strong El Nino year, 1998. But at last we are getting solid data that hits the climate models where it hurts.

The mere fact that the paper was published strikes me as important as its findings. I’m not a scientist…I’m not even all the bright…so I might well have missed it, but I don’t see any of the usual pro forma obeisances to the CAGW party line. .

I really like this part: “Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.”

“Greenhouse” gases (CO2) up, “Greenhouse” warming down … hmmm. Maybe, just maybe there is a fundamental problem with using sheets of glass or plastic enclosing a space as an analogy for a free flowing gas of a planetary atmosphere …

Note that AGW is NOT a theory. It is, at best, merely an hypothesis – the AGW proponents have never allowed their hypothesis to be subjected to falsification, nor have their analyses been verified, nor their codes validated. The scientific method has not yet been applied, at least by them.

I’m impressed.
This 14 year study shows that over the measuring instrument there is a statistical increase in clouds.
..
Too bad they didn’t locate the instrument in a desert where there would be less clouds.

But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.

REPLY: So because it is from 2011 and was only noticed today, that makes it not significant for you? Oh wait, I forgot, nothing fits the racehorse equation for significance except the latest pony scores.

What is truly astounding is just how little (ZERO?) all these thousands of so-called climate scientists have achieved whilst spending billions of dollars of other peoples money.

When you think of what astonishing work the likes of Newton, Tesla, Florey and other pioneers achieved mostly alone and with virtually nothing in the way of resources …… the mind boggles at these truly pathetic AGW losers…

Alec aka Daffy Duck says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:05 pm
I saw this earlier this summer:
Entering the Era of 30+ Year Satellite Cloud Climatologies: A North American Case Study
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And yet the GCM’s still have no predictive value? Are they using the wrong control knob?

Boy when it rains ………it pours bad news for the Team of Wholesale Liars.

Over the last week or so there’s been many discussions and indications which point to one common gargantuan fact.
That never was there any science showing any capability of human’s relative infinitesimal contribution to the atmosphere to impact anything climate whatsoever.

All things back up that cold blooded certain reality.
All of the layers of piled up fallacious Climate Surmising has produced nothing but
a purposefully mendacious political mission.
The enormity of the unscrupulousness of it all will forever mark history with a dark and dirty patina of institutionalized fraud.

The findings contradict the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”…………………….

The paper also finds a negative trend in precipitable water vapor, as do other global datasets, again the opposite of predictions of AGW theory that warming allegedly from CO2 will increase precipitable water vapor in the atmosphere to allegedly amplify warming by 3-5 times.

Presumably regional cloud patterns change as the climate changes, so the study doesn’t appear strong enough to say much about AGW. On the other hand, if the findings were the opposite of those actually made, I’m sure this study would be viewed as a pinnacle of warmist science. ;-)

Without the positive feedback from more water vapor assumed in the GCMs, catastrophic man-made global warming or climate change does indeed go poof! The most its advocates could then hope for would be the ~1 K warming from doubling 280 ppm found in the lab. I suspect that in the real world climate sensitivity would be even less than that and possibly even a cooling in some environments or under certain conditions.

Jimbo says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:17 pm
…
“will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared “back-radiation.”
…
Isn’t it true, that a regular old fashioned cloud will block out the longwave infrared emitted from the sun if the cloud happens to get in between the sun and the instrument?

The paper Alec cites above seems to be in conflict with the headline paper, as it shows a decrease in clouds. I assume that the headline paper is ascribing the decline in IR to an increase in clouds (“long-term change in the cloudiness”), and I’m puzzled that the lead paper also shows a decrease in at least one form of water vapor. This needs untangling, at least for me.

Is this the same site Mosh? It seems as if this observation was seen before.

December 17, 2013
AGW Falsified: NOAA Long Wave Radiation Data Incompatible with the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming
ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming (AGW) theory claims the earth is warming because rising CO2 is like a blanket, reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. However, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that at least for the last 30 years, Earth’s energy loss to space has been rising. The last 30 years of NOAA data is not compatible with the theory of AGW. It would appear that either 30 years of NOAA data is wrong or the theory of AGW is flawed. This is Michael Hammer’s conclusion following analysis of the official outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) data.

The Great Plains aren’t technically a desert, ie with less than eight inches of precipitation a year. The long grass prairie actually gets quite a lot of rain, hence its abundant unirrigated corn & bean crops. The short grass prairie & high plains get less, but still more than a desert.

The relevant site is in Lamont, OK, with average annual rainfall around 34 inches, maybe more.

I believe I did state that the name is a colloquialism and not an actual scientific designation. And OK is usually not thought of when discussing the “great plains”. The exact definition varies by those using the term.

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 5:01 pm
“……………But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.”
=============================================================================

You must be kidding I mean this has to be joke, right? Come on Nick, A main tenet of global warming theory is that all or at least the vast majority of Feedbacks are positive. If clouds are a negative feedback then that has smashes a major tenet.

If reduced cloud cover is responsible, then that is what the theory predicts.

Its just that low clouds produce more sunlight reflection/albedo (reduced downwelling solar) than they provide for increased downwelling longwave, so there can still be an increase in overall downwelling radiation with reduced low cloud cover.

Even more destructive would be a negative feedback from water vapor. By destructive, I mean, totally destroying in detail, smashing, obliterating, annihilating and wiping off the face of the earth, plowing salt into the site of its prior existence, the repeatedly falsified, intentional lie of catastrophic man-made global warming.

Steve Mosher’s cryptic comment “one site” deserves amplification. More sites would be better. In a larger sense, the key dynamics are over the ocean. There are many reasons why the IR response to increased CO2 over oceans would be different.

To summarize:
1. One location
2. The main event is the ocean dynamics
3. Even for land dynamics, the results are difficult to generalize because we cannot model the clouds.

All this said, if the result had gone the other way, it would be trumpeted by alarmists as proof positive of catastrophic climate change. It would not have been. Had the result shown increased down-welling IR, it would only have been a slight confirmation of a point on which most of us agree. increased CO2 has an impact on IR.

Seems to me this finding takes us back to where I began in all this many years ago, to the fairly old “sunspot – solar wind – cosmic ray – cloud formation” theory. As the theory goes: Fewer sunspots equals less solar wind equals more cosmic rays equals more cloud cover equals cooler temperatures. I would have thought the CERN bubble chamber experimental outcome would have maintained focus on this theory. So why is any of this “new news”?

Nick and Mosher, time will prove the point. CO2 is an after-affect of oceanic/atmospheric teleconnections that have warmed and greened the Earth since the Little Ice Age. The anthropogenic CO2 portion is too small to consider as part of the trend. Solar variation is too small to consider as part of the trend. The real money is on what the Walker Cells are doing around the equatorial band and Bob Tisdale’s work on discharge/recharge events. My gut tells me that because of less than clear sky conditions due to clouds around the globe along the equatorial band means that we are slowly running out of gas, which explains the pause. But if we begin to sink no need to panic. This is a normal up and down thing in this present interglacial. It is okay for you two to let out your CO2 laden breath. The pause as well as any downward trend is just temporary. We will eventually be back to pleasant warmth. Barring a huge equatorial volcanic explosion we will only be a bit cooler and dryer is all.

Sum of all solar variations is more than sufficient to explain observations, although there are probably other modulating factors at work, too. Indeed, climate at all time frames correlates well with solar and other celestial factors.

Quite a site, I’d say, and I wonder which tenet Stokes is referring to.
800,000 observations over a 14 year period.
And not man-made data.
Of course, the fact that this site’s behavior closely replicates the global behavior lends authority to the study’s findings.
Bombshell-ish enough, for most, but not those suddenly skeptical.

Affect of low and high latitude volcanic eruptions of similar magnitude is different. Prompt effect (one to two years) of big tropical eruptions might be cooling, but longer term is warming. Of course consensus “science” attributes this observation to injection of CO2, but there are better explanations. High latitude eruptions tend not to affect the opposite hemisphere, so are more regional in effect.

M Simon says: August 5, 2014 at 6:09 pm
“And Oklahoma is what % of the lower 48? What % of the Earth landmass. What % of the Earth’s surface?”

That was Mosh’s question.

“What are the odds that the result is just “random variation” of the models?”

What’s your point here? A paper was published three years ago, said to be a bombshell contradicting main tenets of AGW theory. But the paper said that the IR went down because the clouds and humidity went down, quite in line with AGW theory. And in fact, models predict a reduction in precipitation for that region. So where is the contradiction?

For the life of me I can’t see how this would be a bombshell. There is nothing strange about this study. As always, WV and clouds make all the difference.

ONE site has been monitored. In North-Central Oklahoma. And the paper states the following about the trends:

““The seasonal all-sky radiance shows statistically significant decreasing trends in the winter, summer, and autumn, with values greater than 1% yr^-1 in the winter and autumn, and a trend of increasing downwelling radiance in the spring. These trends in all-sky radiance are primarily caused by changes in the fraction of scene types (i.e., cloudiness) over the SGP site. Overall, there are more clear-sky scenes and fewer thick cloud scenes in the winter, summer, and autumn, thus leading to a negative all-sky radiance trend, whereas the opposite is true in the spring. Furthermore, clear-sky radiance is decreasing in all four seasons, which we hypothesize is due to a decrease in the precipitable water vapor in all seasons. Thick cloud radiance is decreasing in autumn and winter. Thin cloud radiance is increasing in spring and decreasing in winter.”

Less clouds and WV in the atmosphere above the study site. Accordingly, less estimated DWLWIR. Go figure!

I’ve referenced this paper a few times in the past (more often on alarmist sites). I’ve always thought it kind of funny that it was completely ignored. What I find most interesting is this work was never replicated all over the world. Seems like an easy approach to verifying the science. It’s almost like the scientists don’t want to take a chance on the data coming back with the wrong answer.

Come on Nick, how many times have we been told that the models can’t make regional projections with any accuracy? The models depend on the positive feed back chain that CO2 warms the planet, increases water evaporation, which in turn warms the planet more because H2O is also a “greenhouse” gas. The models also assume that clouds, on balance, also warm the planet, so more water vapor creating more clouds increases the feedback even more (the “Venus” scenario). This paper suggests that these positive feedbacks may not exist, and may even be negative (which is believable to me since systems that are dominated by positive feedback tend to not be wildly unstable, unlike our long term climate). Is this a mortal blow to the AGW conjecture? No, but it does increase the doubt factor considerably. At least for people that are looking at it objectively.

It is ludicrous to refer to AGW as a “theory”. Gravitation is a theory. Evolution is a theory. The atomic theory of matter and germ theory of disease are, well, theories. AGW is an hypothesis shown laughably false over and over again since first being pawned off on a world soon to be suffering from its baleful effects.

According to the greenhouse gas theory, your tomatoes would frost on an overcast September night, and would be protected on a clear night by the IR downwelling. We know from experience that this is backwards from the real world. The whole greenhouse gas theory is B.S.

The paper attributes the reduction primarily to cloud reduction, and the drop in clear-sky radiance to a reduction in humidity. And yes, the AR4 projects reduced precipitation for Oklahoma.

So your claim is that a CAGW “theory” predicts both an increase and a decrease in longwave infrared radiation from increasing greenhouse gases over the 14 year period 1996-2010 in the US Great Plains, given that CO2 levels increased ~7% over this period.

I have been asking recently if any studies had been done over dry deserts to show that increasing CO2 was increasing the temperature? So far no one has pointed to a study. I wonder why there haven’t been any?

“It is ludicrous to refer to AGW as a “theory”. Gravitation is a theory. Evolution is a theory. The atomic theory of matter and germ theory of disease are, well, theories. AGW is an hypothesis shown laughably false over and over again since first being pawned off on a world soon to be suffering from its baleful effects.”

To be fair, that’s HockeySchtick originally referring to it as “AGW theory”.

Nick Stokes and Mosher. I would really like to hear your rationalization for the emissivity curves that most engineers use for radiative absorption. These are after Leckner who expanded on Hottel’s work. The curves show that for CO2, there is a point where the absorption flattens out (there is a typo on the label of the Y axis for the CO2 graph). Yes, yes, the curves are never perfectly flat. That doesn’t mean that they are not, nearly perfectly flat for all levels of CO2 that will ever be seen on earth. I have had a back and forth with Science of Doom (excellent site and person) about this. His opinion is that something happens at temperatures below 0. The curves for CO2 and H2O are at my (nearly comatose) blog as “Leckner’s Curves”. The curves are from: Bejan, Adrian; Kraus, Allan D. Heat Transfer Handbook. John Wiley & Sons., 2003 Page 618. I’ve used these curves to derive a forcing curve and it is very similar to that from ΔF = α ln (C/Co) where α=5.35 and Co= 278 ppm, as per Myhre, 1998 and others. The difference is that at high levels of CO2, AT HIGHER TEMPERATURES, we do not see an increase in forcing. This will certainly be true at the elevated levels of CO2 present in earth’s atmosphere. If it is temperature, what is the magic temperature, at which the break occurs? Given that the curves go to 0 C, it has to be lower than this and it has to be a substantial break to account for the increased absorption. If it is due to pressure differential, what is the magic pressure differential. Obviously it can’t be temperature differential as there wouldn’t be a transfer of energy without a differential. Don’t pull that “blanket” stuff. That is accounted for in Leckner’s solutions to the RTE’s (and Ramanathan and those who followed him). At higher temperatures (i.e. 2,000 C), there are a lot more lines to solve, so it isn’t that either. For the sky dragons reading this. CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. It reduces radiant energy transfer. Adding more means the planet surface must get to a higher temperature to maintain thermal equilibrium. This is as well established as gravity. We simplify the explanation of this by calling it the greenhouse effect. For those poor, confused souls who read Wikipedia, I have a number of physics texts etc., that refer to heat as energy, not energy transfer.

OK, but you, Nick, apparently think that AGW “theory” has tenets not violated by this finding.

Please then state what evidence observed in nature you have discovered to support these tenets. I haven’t found any, so I’d deeply appreciate your trotting out the observations which you have found to support the hypothesis that humans are mainly responsible for whatever climate change has been observed since, say 1950, or another date of your choosing.

In the lab a doubling of CO2 from ~300 to 400 ppm in dry air produces about a one degree C warming, but a closed system is very different from an open atmosphere. Maybe that could happen, but IMO there is no evidence that anything like that being on track for that response has happened during the first ~100 ppm of supposedly measured increase in atmospheric concentration.

So far, as far as I’m concerned, AGW is a baseless assertion. The models designed to show it have shown themselves laughable, miserable failures, at huge cost in human lives and treasure. You and your partners in what I can’t call it without getting moderated have a lot for which to answer. So please start with telling me why you believe in this blatant, errant, murderous garbage?

“The Great Plains are sometimes called the Great American Desert. Desert is relative.”

I was told that; “Technically” (based on precipitation levels only) Antarctica is a Desert. Lots of frozen moisture there, but very little additional liquid precipitation. It mostly just blows around a lot. Bit of a practical problem that, in “non-desert” climes you can just poop in a hole, cover it with some dirt and it’s gone in a year or so. Poop in the desert and your bad manners are there for everybody else to see for a long time, tisk, tisk, tisk.

Sure sounds like the “Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis” is just a wee bit wobbly…. Not to worry, I expect a full explanation of how this data also PROVES the hypothesis to come along shortly, they just hadn’t figured out this “wrinkle” yet.

/BS on

Let’s see; “The increasing GHG’s cause the backradiation to become optically phase reversed and ortho-normally polarized along the optical axis of propagation, therefore, the sensors on the ground (not designed to be sensitive to ortho-normally polarized light) cannot see it”…. YEAH, THAT’S THE TICKET….. (full credit to “SNL” for the character sterotype).

And in fact, models predict a reduction in precipitation for that region. So where is the contradiction?
====
and in fact, other models predict an increase in precipitation for that same region…
…and that’s the contradiction

Nick, more CO2 is proposed to cause more water vapor molecules from more oceanic evaporation due to additional anthropogenic warming (which is where the idea that anthropogenic warming will trigger more/super El Ninos). We should be in a continued cycle of increasing re-radiated longwave infrared warming and more water vapor in the air. Period.

This paper says there is a glitch in that theory. There shouldn’t be according to AGW theorists.

Hello everybody. I think there is something strange here. Why are they saying that this decrease was probably caused by “long-term change in the cloudiness above the site” if their own graph at Figure 5 (the first posted here) shows a decrease in IR radiation during Clear-Sky conditions?? The blue circles at the graph are responsible for almost all the decrease in All-Sky conditions in most wavelengths. Apparently, their own result contradict their conclusion. I mean, the decrease in downwelling IR radiation during Clear-Sky conditions may have been caused by decrease in water vapor, for example, which also contradict the AGW hypothesis after all. What do you think, Anthony Watts?

This was never about science… it was about using pseudo-science to hamstring the developed world.
I’d expect some more of these (studies) soon, with the sudden “revelation” that burning fossil fuels (doing something useful that makes mankind better off) actually will cause drastic COOLING! Thus, to save the planet we still have to do the same things we had to do to save the planet when it was supposed to cause warming.
The theories may change, the players may change, but the end result will be the same… too many people, too much energy being consumed (however it’s consumed), and prosperity equals evil. All the good folks here making rational arguments, because they believe in rational thought. Your adversaries do not.

“For the sky dragons reading this. CO2 IS a greenhouse gas. It reduces radiant energy transfer. Adding more means the planet surface must get to a higher temperature to maintain thermal equilibrium. This is as well established as gravity. ”

John, with all due respect, all of the empirical observations are running against the “greenhouse gas” HYPOTHESIS. And all of the empirical observations are (so far) running in favor of gravity.

“Reducing” radiant energy transfer is (sorry) COMPLETE HOGWASH. Energy transfer can be; slowed, accelerated or delayed. Any engineer worth his paycheck knows this. The insulation in the walls of my house slows conductive energy transfer (which causes my furnace to turn on less frequently to “re-fill” my house with thermal energy).. There are NO terms in Maxwell’s equations (which very adequately describe propagation of radiant energy) related to “reducing” energy transfer, NONE.

The “as well established as gravity” Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis has run hard aground against the shoals of reality. I’m sorry if you invested too much of your career in it, perhaps I can interest you in a nice “personnel floatation device” ? I picked some up at a good price (unused of course) from the Costa Concordia a few years back.

They would indeed. So are there no reports from other sites, and if not, why not? This would seem to be a good way for alarmists to justify their fears beyond any possible contradiction. Has all the funding for instrumentation been sucked up by model programmers?

Just for starters, could the required equipment be installed at USCRN stations, where other parameters such as surface temp, precipitation, relative humidity, wind, and solar radiation are already measured? Are the instruments prohibitively expensive and/or delicate?

Sturgis, be my guest. You say that solar is the driver of this trend, not something else. How so? Peer reviewed only please. And use papers based on current solar indices that have been corrected. Plus please provide your mechanisms in mathematic formula, as in energy needed, energy provided.

Stokes you are dancing after the band has stooped playing.
Like every other alarmist, every time you are challenged to provide any science to support the mother of all tenets you take a pass.
Let’s cut to the chase.
Where’s the beef. How are you convinced the ridiculously small human contribution to the greenhouse effect is capable of impacting the enormity of our atmosphere and climate?
The endless surmising over how fossil fuel emissions are somehow warming our atmosphere, then evaporating water vapor which then produces most of the is not supported by any scientific measurements, evidence or observations. Period.
Don’t change the subject or expand the question or reply with a question.
Just spit out the science you have imagined that shows the theory works.

It’s okay to rag Mosher and Stokes a little bit. They are not above doing it to others. My question is where is their curiosity about why this result was observed? Contradictory results for a scientist should be endlessly fascinating. I would think Nick and Mosher would want to resolve the physics.

Pamela Gray says: August 5, 2014 at 6:47 pm
“Nick, more CO2 is proposed to cause more water vapor molecules from more oceanic evaporation due to additional anthropogenic warming (which is where the idea that anthropogenic warming will trigger more/super El Ninos).”

Yes, globally. And more precipitation too. But it varies regionally, as Fig 11.12 in AR4 shows. Less precipitation for OK. Which probably means less clouds and humidity, as the paper observes.

Nick Stokes says:
August 5, 2014 at 6:18 pm
“What’s your point here? A paper was published three years ago,…”

Michael Mann’s hockey stick paper was published in a previous century and is still being touted (don’t know if that includes you or not: please clarify). Why are you pointing out that this paper was published 3 years ago? Stick to the science or lose credibility.

Pretty funny that you presume the burden of peer-reviewed proof is mine, when you provided nothing but “your gut” in support of your assertion that climate trends aren’t related to solar activity & that volcanoes are to blame. I’m laughing out loud, literally.

You didn’t bother to present any evidence at all, in response to my request for some, but I’ll go ahead & link to this source, showing the effect of solar cycle on climate not only in the current interglacial but in prior ones:

“Abstract. To unravel the short-term climate variability during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11, which represents a close analogue to the Holocene with regard to orbital boundary conditions, we performed microfacies and time series analyses on a ~3200-yr-long record of annually laminated Holsteinian lake sediments from Dethlingen, northern Germany. These biogenic varves comprise two sub-layers: a light sub-layer, which is controlled by spring/summer diatom blooms, and a dark sub-layer consisting mainly of amorphous organic matter and fragmented diatom frustules deposited during autumn/winter. Time series analyses were performed on the thickness of the light and dark sub-layers. Signals exceeding the 95% and 99% confidence levels occur at periods that are near-identical to those known from modern instrumental data and Holocene palaeoclimatic records. Spectral peaks at periods of 90, 25, and 10.5 yr are likely associated with the 88-, 22- and 11-yr solar cycles, respectively. This variability is mainly expressed in the light sub-layer spectra, suggesting solar influence on the palaeoproductivity of the lake. Significant signals at periods between 3 and 5 yr and at ∼6 yr are strongest expressed in the dark sub-layer spectra and may reflect an influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) during autumn/winter. Our results suggest that solar forcing and ENSO/NAO-like variability influenced central European climate during MIS 11 similarly to the present interglacial, thus demonstrating the comparability of the two interglacial periods at sub-decadal to decadal timescales.”

IOW, MIS 11 shows the same cycles as observed in the Holocene and other interglacials, ie an early climatic optimum, followed by a decreasing temperature trend with fairly regular ups and downs, such as the Old Kingdom, Minoan, Roman, Medieval and Modern Warm Periods, with intervening cold intervals, such as the Little Ice Age, Dark Ages and Greek Dark Ages CPs.

On the time scale of tens and hundreds of thousands of years rather than millennia, centuries and decades, please tell me how you explain the glacial and interglacial cycles if not by solar radiation and magnetism modulated by Earth’s orbital mechanics?

You are very amusing. Your classroom must be a laugh riot, unless your students are unusually dense and slow. I showed you one of mine. Will you show me one of yours, as you should have done at the very least before making your ludicrous, baseless assertion?

Nick, ENSO processes also affect us globally with fairly typical and opposite patterns regionally, and that create 30 to 60+ year oscillations. Are you saying that the tiny, tiny fraction of anthropogenic CO2 took over these extremely powerful ENSO processes? Kicked it to the curb? Became king of the hill? By what possible mechanism could it do that? Are you going to play the “amplification” card that solar enthusiasts love to use? If you do play that card, why is the Earth not cooperating? And if you say because ENSO processes tagged back in, I will snort my evening tea all over my puter screen.

“Contradictory results for a scientist should be endlessly fascinating.”

I admit I am not a scientist (I did stay at at Holiday Inn Express ™ last night, ha ha ha), but as an engineer I have been fascinated how some apparently smart folks have totally convinced themselves that a trivial amount of gases in the atmosphere can “drive”, “control”, “determine”, “force” the temperature of the massive ocean’s into “compliance”. Very interesting phenomenon.

I bet that as a traveling salesman (Ok, old cultural reference) if I showed up at most folks homes a hundred years ago and told them I could sell then a “sugar cube” sized device that would make the water in their bathtub “luxuriously warm” without them having to boil water, they would laugh me off their porch (and probably pull out the shotgun to scare the nutjob away). Yet, we have a whole collection of folks with lots of “education” that are certain that this “sugar cube” sized device exists ???

I bet that with the money they have expended I could have found a unicorn by now (well, at least a “peer reviewed” facsimile of a unicorn).

Yet, they INSIST that the “greenhouse” gases are controlling the temperature, with that logic I think we can all just throw out our furnaces and buy “sugar cubes” (capsules of CO2) to keep us warm…..

I guess in their defense they did read it in a textbook, so it must be TRUE….

Mosh and Nick. Thanks for keeping things ‘real’, as they say. The findings are interesting, but by no means do they overthrow the current theory, IMO. Certainly shows that (in some areas, at some times) that other ‘knobs’ certainly play an important–and yes sometimes primary–role along with the GHGs. FWIW, I do appreciate papers like this being posted (whether at time of publishing or later), however, in some cases it seems as though the implications are a bit over hyped. Just my own 2 cents.

OK, OK, let’s admit that Stokes and Mosher are right, this is only one site. We can’t rely on this outcome anymore than if we had temperature data from a single weather station for the same 14 year period. Would anyone argue that it would be representative of the entire globe?

But that said, there’s a couple of interesting questions that ought to be asked:

1. According to their web site http://www.arm.gov/instruments/instrument.php?id=aeri there are more of these instruments out there. Alaska has one, there are three in the western Pacific (one of which is in Australia) and some mobile units currently located in places like Germany, China, India and Brazil (among others). So the obvious question is what does the data from the whole bunch say?

2. While Stokes may be correct in quoting AR4 as having projected reduced precipitation for this site, it also projected increased temps for the planet over that time period which didn’t happen. So the reduced precipitation cannot be the feedback from a process that never happened, can it?

3. What did AR4 project for temps in this region, and what happened to actual temps in this region? With a marked decrease in downward LW, one would expect cooler temps, unless the planet acting as a heat pump (which is does) delivered enough extra energy to compensate. Given that the earth has NOT warmed, that becomes problematic to explain as this would imply cooling in the tropics (which pump heat to the mid lats), would it not?

The Mosher / Stokes response is that this is one site and a main tenet of CAGW is not affected. It would be interesting to see whether local weather stations show an increase or decrease in temperature over the same period. As we know, there is an on-going controversy regarding down-trending raw temperature readings in the US versus adjusted temperature readings on the rise.

A weakness in the study is that it is based on trend analysis. The predicted trend is compared to the measured trend but the measured trend is based upon untestable assumptions. In legitimate science, the predicted relative frequency is compared to the observed relative frequency and there are no assumptions.

The paper is 3 years old. Why did such an important finding find little publicity during that time?

Is it possible that increased CO2 has caused increased cloudiness AND decreased precipitable water?

It is only one site, but regional effects are known to have measurable global-wide consequences, right? Surely it is now worthwhile to study as many regions as possible.

The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site.”

Some people do not believe in the effects (or existence, sometimes) of DWLWIR, so for them this changes nothing.

As for my proposal, it is well supported in the literature. ENSO processes create 30 to 60 year unequal trends that show up all over the place, first identified in the fishing industry. For one of many land based affects, google Rocky Mountain Elk and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

The Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis is falsified right there…… once again. How many times does this AGW hoax have to be falsified before people start to listen…. Oh, when the funding runs out. Silly me. I forgot. They’re doing politics, not science.

“I was going to argue the physics of this. Then I remembered an old adage. I’ll not repeat it here as it is rude.”

John, go ahead and be rude if you like, I have been on occasion, I have a thick skin;

Here’s the “physics” as I see it;

1) If you fill a fixed volume with a “GHG” and illuminate it with a constant light (at the wavelength where it absorbs) it warms, yes indeed it does. This is the classic “greenhouse effect” laboratory experiment, no doubt about that.

2) Well this is where it all goes down the “tube”;
2a) First off if the gas is not in a fixed volume (as in the atmosphere) it expands after warming which as expected changes it’s optical absorption properties.
2b) This gas in the real atmosphere “interacts” with it’s neighbors transferring heat via conduction, convection and radiation.
2c) As the gas’s density changes (from being warmed) it moves upwards.

3) There have been several experiments that clearly demonstrate than building a “greenhouse” with roof materials that transmit or absorb IR radiation has NO EFFECT on the internal temperature, Wood, Nashile, Penn State.

Anyway, no sense beating a dead horse, some folks will always be convinced that a single laboratory experiment (the thermal response of a bit of gas sealed in a tube) can be extrapolated to cover the whole atmosphere of the Earth, and the Ocean’s (with no apparent consideration of the relative thermal capacities of said subsystems).

Do you think that doing the CO2 in a tube experiment in a freezing cold laboratory could make the laboratory reach tropic temperatures ?

The HYPOTHESIS IS DEAD, yes that’s a rude phrasing, but it’s still DEAD. No temperature rise, no “backradiation increase”, no measurable effect of the HYPOTHESIS AT ALL.

As hypotheses go this one had a hell of a life, ulcers causes by stress and anxiety only lasted about three decades, this one made it a whole century before the wheels came off.

What field of engineering did you study that you haven’t been exposed to thermodynamics and heat transfer? Because if you have taken an engineering course in heat transfer then you would know why CO2 is indeed a “greenhouse gas”. You may have forgotten the math, but you should at least know the foundations. And if you have thermodynamics, you would know about energy balances and know that “gravity” as a source of warming is . . . Wow. . . Just Wow. As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.

Kristian wrote this on another thread: Again, this has been pointed out so many times to those of you who actually believe DWLWIR (‘atmospheric back radiation’) to be a real, separate working flow of energy to the surface (an extra (and equal) input of energy next to the solar heat flux): If this were really the case, then why aren’t we harnessing this energy flux? It is seemingly twice as intense as the solar flux, evened out globally and across the diurnal cycle. Why aren’t we seeing ‘back radiation’ power plants all over the world?

It was the last in a series on the non-existence of heat transfer via DWLWIR. He has not been the only proponent of that view.

KevinK
1) If you fill a fixed volume with a “GHG” and illuminate it with a constant light (at the wavelength where it absorbs) it warms, yes indeed it does. This is the classic “greenhouse effect” laboratory experiment, no doubt about that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You are confusing heat capacity with greenhouse effect and that is not the classic experiment. The rest of your argument rests upon your weak grasp of the physics and goes even further off course from there.

Please show me sources demonstrating that the 22 and 11 year solar cycles are “outdated”. That’s a real knee-slapper.

The peer reviewed, often cited paper I presented doesn’t cite those cycles “in passing”. It shows that they explain the deposition of the observed layers. Did you read the whole paper? I can produce lots of others to the same effect.

So far you’ve got nothing, zero, zip, nada, peer reviewed or otherwise, to support your baseless assertion of no solar influence on climate.

Your understanding of ocean cycles isn’t even elementary. It’s cartoonish and laughably juvenile. The PDO, reported by a fisheries biologist in 1997, isn’t an ENSO process. The ENSO, PDO, AMO and other oceanic oscillations are all interrelated and ultimately driven by solar activity, modulated by other parameters, perhaps to include undersea seismic activity, itself partially in response to the solar-induced oscillations. What do you suppose causes the observed multi-decadal oscillations in the first place?

How dare you tell me to Google vague references, when I provided the peer-reviewed paper you asked for? Let’s see the Rocky Mountain elk reference, and whatever point you imagine you can make with it in support of your unwarranted assertions. If it shows a PDO influence, big whoop! That wouldn’t surprise me at all. The PDO reflects solar activity, among other influences. It seems I’ve forgotten more about the PDO than you apparently have ever known. Show where and how any of your alleged references justify the conclusion that “it’s not the sun”. You haven’t done so because you can’t.

When are you finally going to make the case you should have in your first comment on the subject? You can’t get away with a totally unsupported assertion. I showed you mine. Let’s see yours. Put up or shut up. And you have the nerve to consider yourself a scientist.

Yes, they all are, but they don’t derail threads. Pat’s postings have become almost an institution here–and they’re valuable / newsworthy. They’re like the ribbon news feed at the bottom of a TV broadcast. I hope he’ll be given latitude to keep on posting, under a creative exception license.

And while you’re at it, kindly reply to my question about what you imagine causes the glacial/interglacial cycles if not Milankovitch Cycles, insolation modulated by Earth’s orbital parameters. I replied to your request. When are you `) going to do what you should have in the first place to support your zany, anti-scientific opinion, and 2) do me the courtesy of responding to my question, as I did to yours?

OK, now I’m conflicted. Does this mean that we should keep pumpin’ out CO2 to prevent global warming, or continue our expensive and futile efforts to reduce CO2 levels to prevent a coming ice age? Soooo confused!

What we should do, in my opinion, is fire the folks who led us into a line of research that provides no basis for making public policy and hire folks who will lead us into a line of research that will.
Should we keep pumpin’ out CO2? Currently there is not a scientific basis for answering this question.

Here’s a June 2014 paper on a late Holocene (from 4700 to 70 years ago) record of solar influence on the Asian monsoon, to go with the MIS 11 paper I already cited. I could provide them for other interglacials, too, but I’m still waiting for even one peer reviewed paper from you showing no solar influence on climate.

How about a 2012 paper finding a strong solar influence on Late Miocene lake sediments, with among other conclusions the fact that “a single-proxy-analysis, as often performed on Holocene records, should be considered cautiously as it might fail to capture the full range of solar cycles”.

I now see a few people beat me to the ‘one tree’ reply… I wonder what the reply will be?
______________I think that I shall never see
a tree as important as YAD 063
Everybody who cares about a sustainable future for our children will stand shoulder to shoulder and demand climate justice. Our people are standing at the front lines because of environmental racism. It’s about jobs.

Solar cycle modulation of the ENSO impact on the winter climate of East Asia

Qun Zhou1,
Wen Chen1,* and
Wen Zhou2

This study examines how the East Asian winter climate response to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) varies with the 11-year solar cycle. The results indicate that the ENSO and East Asian climate relationship is robust and significant during winters with low solar (LS) activity, with evident warming in the lower troposphere over East Asia, which can be closely linked to the decreased pressure gradient between the cold Eurasian continent and the warm Pacific. Moreover, during the LS and El Niño winters, there is a typical rainfall response in Southeast Asia, with wet conditions over South China and dry conditions over the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi, which can be explained by the anticyclone over the western North Pacific (WNP). However, during high solar activity winters, both the surface temperature and rainfall anomalies are much less closely associated with the ENSO. The possible mechanism for this solar modulation of the ENSO-related East Asian climate anomalies may be the change in the tropospheric circulation with the ENSO in both tropical and extratropical regions. Particularly, in the LS cases, an anomalous WNP anticyclone is intensified and a noticeable cyclone occupies northern Northeast Asia, resulting from the changing location and strength of the large-scale Walker circulation induced by the more pronounced sea surface temperature anomalies associated with the ENSO. Further investigation with long historic data confirms that the relationship between the ENSO and the East Asian winter climate anomalies depends on the phases of 11 year solar cycle, with enhanced East Asian climate variation during the LS winters.

Tell me when you’ve had enough. Still waiting for your first peer reviewed paper supporting your assertion of no solar influence on climate in general and ENSO or other oceanic oscillations in particular.

John Eggert says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:30 pm
KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:59 pm
>>but as an engineer I
… As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And just to throw a Yamal on the fire, I am just a little sad about the tone of some of the discussion given the code of ethics engineers are supposed to adhere to. (yeah I know, not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but I just are an engingear two, to? too?/three.*)

*Usage note
The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for?

I am a Civil Engineer but that doesn’t make me civil, but we all should try to be, even in court. Well, especially in court. ;-)

*Usage note
The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for?
_______________
Are you saying that those who insist on not ending a sentence with a preposition are up screwing?

Cloudiness decreased during the late 20th century warming period (more zonal jets) and started to increase again around 2000 (more meridional jets) as this paper points out.

The total amount of evaporation globally is related to the speed of convective overturning in the atmosphere as a whole. Faster overturning draws more vapour from the oceans so if precipitable water vapour is declining that suggests that convective overturning is slowing down.

I have suggested elsewhere that more GHGs would result in slower convective overturning due to the loss of energy direct to space from within the atmosphere which causes less kinetic energy to be returned to the surface in adiabatic descent than was removed from the surface in adiabatic ascent.

Miscolczi’s observation of water vapour declining as CO2 increases would fit the findings of this paper.

However, I think the whole scenario is solar induced unless someone can find a way of getting CO2 to significantly affect jet stream behaviour.

The issue of jet stream behaviour is aslo a problem for the Svensmark cosmic ray hypothesis because to get changes in zonality / meridionality requires more than just changes in the amount of cloud condensation nuclei.

For that, one must also change the gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles so that the jets and climate zones can slide to and fro latitudinally beneath the tropopause.

Furhermore, as they point out, this paper associates increased cloudiness with decreased DWIR yet AGW theory tries to tell us that clouds increase DWIR.

OK, Pamela, it’s 10 PM Pacific Daylight Time. Time’s up. Just as I told you you would, you lose, 5-0. One paper lamely and ludicrously responded to, three papers and one question not answered at all.

You should not imagine that reading posts and comments on this blog, however valuable it may be and is, qualifies you to comment on climatology. It also appears that whatever scientific background you might have has also failed you in grappling with this complex subject. Hope your students aren’t as short-changed as your pathetic performance here suggests they must be. If so, they have a good case for pedagogical malpractice.

“Overall, there are more clear-sky scenes and fewer thick cloud scenes in the winter, summer, and autumn, thus leading to a negative all-sky radiance trend, whereas the opposite is true in the spring.”

Hey Nick Stokes, Steven Mosher, and the rest, started working on that CO2 causes Ice Ages paper yet??

I think you mean the next glaciation. I make the same mistake sometimes too. Here is a Letter To Nature from way back in the day. Ya see, these CAGW folks predict / project everything. It is a religion and not science at all. I mistakenly called it a hypothesis, please accept my humble apologies.

Abstract – October 1999
Long-Term Global Warming Scenarios Computed with an Efficient Coupled Climate ModelStefan Rahmstorf et al
We present global warming scenarios computed with an intermediate-complexity atmosphere-ocean-sea ice model which has been extensively validated for a range of past climates (e.g., the Last Glacial Maximum). Our simulations extend to the year 3000, beyond the expected peak of CO2 concentrations. The thermohaline ocean circulation declines strongly in all our scenarios over the next 50 years due to a thermal effect. Changes in the hydrological cycle determine whether the circulation recovers or collapses in the long run. Both outcomes are possible within present uncertainty limits. In case of a collapse, a substantial long-lasting cooling over the North Atlantic and a drying of Europe is simulated.

……But at last we are getting solid data that hits the climate models where it hurt

True.
Problem is that the models pure existens show gigantic holes in the education systems around the world. Too many students must have been given “passport” to higher studies in too many subjects without elementary knowledge in each subject’s schoolbooks. Not in one country but in many the basic knowledge seems at best to have passed in via one ear and out the other without being understood by the pupil/student.

This is an absolutely devastating blow to the CAGW cargo cult, as its entire premise is predicated up on the wrongful assumption that CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 of forcing per CO2 doubling will mysteriously create a mythical “runaway feedback loop”, involving water vapor, which simply isn’t shown to be occurring in any way, shape or form, and this paper is further evidence of CAGW’s complete lack of efficacy.

Skeptics hypothesize that CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 of forcing can only has a GROSS long-term, warming potential of around 1.1C, which is basically halved by the NEGATIVE feedback effects of ocean evaporation and increased cloud cover, which CO2’s teeny tiny 3.7 watts/M^2 forcing would induce, which would then reduce CO’2 NET global warming effect to around 0.5C.

So at this ”one site”, I suppose that CO2 didn’t mix with the atmosphere above this Lamont, Oklahoma site. CO2 must have stayed at about 360 ppm, (from 1996) or even fell to 350 ppm at or above this site, rather than increasing to approximately 385 ppm (in 2010) as the rest of the world atmosphere shows.
From the CO2 page WUWT Ref: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/figures/co2_mm_obs.png

Begs the simplistic question “Do Increased CO2 levels Reduce Cloud Formation” – I wonder if anyone is doing, or has done, any research on the formation of clouds at different CO2 levels. It would be interesting to see if the rate of formation of water droplet nuclei is affected by different CO2 levels and if for some reason higher CO2 levels inhibit this.

I suspect this would also need to involve testing with various levels of the gas molecules which are involved with their formation to understand what if any interaction there may be between them and CO2 in this process.

As a question : Does the fact that down-welling IR is less than expected show that the formulae and any assumptions behind them for calculating the rate of down-welling IR from GHGs are flawed ?

Very interesting paper! Personally, I doubt that feedbacks can be diagnosed on our limited understanding of climate – and the non-linear, chaotic nature of climate – whether it be the positive feedbacks touted by climate scientists or negative feedbacks suggested by sceptics.

I suspect the cloud cover variation seen here is natural variability in the hydrological cycle. But what people (especially climate scientists, it seems) forget is that cloud cover is fractal (also known as “long-term persistence”). What does this mean? It means that the natural variability from cloud does not “average out”. This 14-year trend in cloud cover is nothing – if we could make these measurements for a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, even longer, we would see trends like this over these much longer periods, and be unable to ascribe causality (because they are sensitive to initial conditions).

And as anyone over the age of about 8 can tell you, cloud cover has a huge impact on air temperatures.

In the discussion on long-term persistence at climatedialogue.org, I deliberately chose cloud cover as a prime example of something that exhibits unpredictable fractal behaviour with huge impact on temperatures. (Note even though the discussion was after the paper cited above, I was not aware of this paper until now). In this context, this paper does not surprise me at all.

What does “statistically significant” mean in this context? What’s the null, what is the expected variability of cloud cover? AR(1)? 1/f? Exactly the same problems as trying to identify “statistical significance” in global air temperatures – since nobody has really pinned down what natural variability is, nobody knows how to test for statistical significance.

Scientists find it difficult to change tack once they have established a plausible hypothesis and in the case of AGW which has meant greater esteem and funding for the industry. Whatever the truth of this 2011 study there appears to be some close analogies to those scientists who refuse to believe in observations and evidence ‘on the ground’ in past ages.

This item concerns the scientific establishment refusing to believe that meteorites fell from the skies
—– —–

‘In the afternoon of Sept 13 1768 a meteorite fell at Luce in France. The French academy of science, then the foremost scientific body in the world, sent a commission which received the unanimous testimony of numerous eye witnesses and were given the ‘rock’ itself. But the commission concluded it did not fall. The statement of one of the witnesses was actually altered to make it fit the explanation that the rock was merely a terrestrial body which had been struck by lightning.

A further example of obscurantism was to come. On July 24 1790 a shower of meteorites fell in Southwest France burying themselves in the earth. Some 300 written statements by witnesses were sent to scientific bodies and journals and pieces of the stones were produced. Still official science would not reverse its ipse dixit that ‘stones do not fall from the sky.’ Charles P Olivier said;

“In the face of all this evidence we have an example of stupidity and bigotry, exhibited by the foremost body of scientists of the day -men who doubtless considered themselves, and were so considered by others, the most advanced and modern of their time, which for all ages should stand as a warning to any man who feels that he can give a final verdict upon a matter outside his immediate experience.”

They are words which any scientist would do well to ponder when confronted with evidence running counter to long cherished opinions. ‘

But it doesn’t contradict any main tenets. It states explicitly that the result is due to a change in cloudiness. And since they measured cloudiness, that is not speculation.

————————————————————————————————————————————-

So that would strongly suggest that clouds are a negative feedback, no?

Also, the fact that this was published into obscurity in 2011 speaks volumes about “the science”. In what other discipline would such a contrary finding have been effectively ignored, not even given the potential publicity of a rebuttal?

Nick Stokes says:
{i}
No. Radiative theory says that total downwelling IR is due to the combined effect of the various GHGs. H2O is the most prevalent. In this case, its reduction exceeded the effect of CO2 increase. {/i}

Thanks Nick, the clue i needed. Clouds set an upper limit on the DWLWR.

It is very clear then, no pun intended, a doubling of CO2 provides 3.7 watts at zero % humidity decreasing as the moisture level increases, until it provides 0 watts under cloudy skies.

Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?
=================
only unexpected if you ignore partial pressure of gas law. add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O will be reduced. basic chemistry. adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, increasing pressure, reducing the ability of water to evaporate, reducing water vapor until mass and pressure of atmosphere returns to equilibrium.

This started as a snarky comment, but once I learned that the paper is from 2011 it no longer is. Has anything happened to Gero and Turner’s funding sources since they published? Someone should ask them while this topic is still fresh here.

Added thought to above comment: For example, if their result is as interesting as it would appear, one would think their funding would have been increased so that they could run additional studies at different sites, or that others would have gotten funding so as to test their results at other sites.

There’s enough kinetic energy stored in ocean currents to drives the world;s economy. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy, that’s why. There’s enough energy in lightning strikes all over the world to provide energy for many major cities. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy. There’s enough kinetic energy stored in the moon as it orbits the earth to run the world’s economy for centuries. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy.

All of which you would know if you had the first clue about physics, but you would prefer to continue commenting in this forum and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you not only don’t understand the physics, you don’t WANT to understand the physics. You just want to rant on as if you do.

Mosher or Stokes,
I am a simple man. Please humor me.
If the relatively tiny share of the greenhouse effect, human CO2 emissions, cannot be scientifically measured or shown to have caused any initial warming of the planet or the theorized subsequent increase in water vapor needed for the bulk of AGW, how is AGW not complete crap?

You haven’t many choices for answers.
You can accept the size of the human contribution and attempt to provide something more than conjecture to explain how such an infinitesimal portion can alter our climate.
Or you can dispute the size/percent/proportion of human contribution and provide accurate and reliable data that shows a larger contribution.
Or you can evade the question.
Or you can change the subject.
Or you can talk about the tonnage of fossil fuel emissions in worrisome tones while ignoring the proportion it represents.

John Eggert says:
August 5, 2014 at 8:30 pm
KevinK wrote:
August 5, 2014 at 7:59 pm
>>…As an engineer, I’m embarrassed that an engineer said that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

you may want to be more concerned with myopia than embarrassment. I am sure you could explain the physics of using a pair of pliers to crack a walnut. The issue is making wild claims as to how the globe is affected the same way as the walnut is.

Put another way, it is not about the engineering, physics, geology, co2, vapor, Solar, etc. it is about the relationships between all those things, in which we understand little in terms of global climate. When we say the physics settles it, or the science is settled, it only serves to keep us ignorant.

and BTW, DNF63 by Lorenz is a nuclear bombshell. For those who have eyes to see.
____________________
So what if he showed that it’s mathematically impossible for modelers to make accurate long range predictions, that just means they have to try harder to prove him wrong. GRANTS!

Sturgis, your responses are certainly less than acceptable scientific debate. Respond appropriately. It is none of my concern if you have not read my comments on this blog, including linking to hundreds of papers on intrinsic weather pattern variations with both short and long term affects. Furthermore, the PDO is a description of a set of pools of water in the NH pacific that is a result of and extrapolated from ENSO data. It’s trends are not driven by solar variations such as UV or SSN variations, nor does it follow 11 or 22 year cycles. In addition, you need to update your information on the supposed Gleissberg Cycle. Are you saying it is a real cycle?

Regarding Milankovitch Cycles, I am well aware of that influence as an intrinsic driver due to Earth’s orbital/rotational wobbles. Do you know which wobble is primarily responsible for the Milankovitch Cycle?

And I remind you once again, respond appropriately. Your ad hominem response was out of line and nearly libelous.

Truthseeker says:
August 5, 2014 at 4:36 pm
“Greenhouse” gases (CO2) up, “Greenhouse” warming down … hmmm. Maybe, just maybe there is a fundamental problem with using sheets of glass or plastic enclosing a space as an analogy for a free flowing gas of a planetary atmosphere …

Maybe …

My father went to college in the late 1950’s. He was taught that greenhouses trapped heat because the glass was transparent to the light coming in but blocked the heat from coming out. We now know greenhouses trap heat through convection. But it was once believe otherwise.

In regards to the stability of the earth’s climate “governor”: Ayn Rand was once asked if the order in the universe was proof of God’s existence. She replied: “What do you think a DISORDERED universe looks like?”

The cAGW crowd believe in an UNSTABLE climate system. It’s obvious that that is false.

“the main tenet of AGW theory which states increasing greenhouse gases including the primary greenhouse gas water vapor and clouds will cause an increase of downwelling longwave infrared back-radiation.”

Seems to me that the downwelling longwave infrared radiation is going to hit EXACTLY the same resistance going DOWN as it encountered going UP, with the result that on a clear sky night NONE of it reaches the ground. A cloud, on the other hand, could essentially reflect (or re-radiate) infrared back to ground through CO2 not dense enough to stop it.

Joe says: August 6, 2014 at 1:35 am
“So that would strongly suggest that clouds are a negative feedback, no?”

No. The effect of AGW at this site is to reduce cloudiness, but the global average may well increase. But most people who think of clouds and feedback think first of the competing effect of albedo.

————————————————————————————————————————

Sorry, let me be more specific. That would suggest that the alteration of cloud cover caused by warming may be (ok, I’ll allow “maybe” instead of “is”) a net negative feedback.

I’d also be interested to know who these “most people” are?

My experience is that most people who actually think about it, rather than trotting out dogma (on either side of the debate) think of cloud changes as a very complex mix of effects involving albedo, radiative properties, convective heat transport, physical movement of latent heat and a myriad other effects depending on location, time of day, season of year and so on.

This is consistent with the theory of CO2AGW. Because some model runs predicted it.
(Others didn’t. The theory of CO2AGW has many tentacles. No real world measurement can be as mighty as the manifold of possibilities that exist in the supercomputer.)

Because photo voltaics have an efficiency approaching zero in that frequency range.”

Hehe. Yeah. That’s the reason.
/////////////////////////////////

The issue is: why is there no research into photo voltaic marterial that responds to the required frequency range?

Theoretically, according to K & T, DWLWIR is a far superior energy source to that of solar, so, surely, it is only a question of finding material that responds to the frequency bandwidth of DWLWIR.

Pyrometers are used to measure IR, and yet, is it not strange that the material in these cannot be scaled up to harvest the IR into real energy?

I find it strange that if DWLWIR is capable of perfoming sensible work in the environ in which it finds itself on planet Earth, that research in to tapping this energy source is not a mainstay of steps taken to combat climate change. It seems to me that 25 to 50% of the total budget spent on AGW/climate change should have gone into that, since it is a win win scenario.

If we can find suitable photo voltaic material then we solve the clean energy issue, and if we do not find suitable material, it is probably because we are proving that DWLWIR is nothing more than a signal incapable of performing sensible work in the environ of planet Earth, and is therefore not a problem.

Since convection is what moves heat in the lower troposphere and the surface temperature is determined well above the surface, at the equivalent emissions height (and not by some fictitious radiation balance at the surface), the current study is interesting, but largely irrelevant.

Whatever happens regarding the asssessed fate of DWLWIR or UWLWIR balances and the climate temp response, rest assured, higher atmospheric CO2 will be blamed by the cognoscenti and the congregation of the Church of Global Warming.
The entrenched political powers pushing the “settled science” ditty are too reputationally and economically invested in acquiring carbon taxes for redistribtive ideologies and more control over capitalist economies, while they abet the ecoterrorists bent on de-industrialization policies.

For substantiation look no further than California, where carbon offset taxes are now being tagged by the governor for high speed rail construction. It’s a construction project where the political left’s main supporter are unions who will be contractually guaranteed the work. Meanwhile the govenor continues to curry favor with ecoterrorists by supporting large fresh water discharges from reservoirs into the San Joaquin delta during an extreme drought in California.

Wow, why is it that reading the comments takes an order of magnitude greater amount of time than merely reading the article… :)

To summarize this thread, we have the following discussions occurring (abbreviated for conciseness and my own personal amusement):

1.0 Discourse on the Subject of the Article in Question
Skeptics: DWLWIR was measured as less than expected at specific locations, so “suck it trebec!”
Believers: Nah man, it’s the clouds, see, they turn it up to 11, besides, this study is so, like, yesterday, “hey, the 2011’s called and they want their study back.” Oh, and lest we forget, this was only one location, and the physics there are clearly not applicable to the rest of the globe.
Skeptics: Wait, “it’s the clouds” is our argument, and you can’t have it back. But maybe we should see about measuring DWLWIR other places.

2.0 Discourse on the Subject of the Greenhouse Effect
Engineer 1: As my calculations clearly show, concentrations of CO2 above 200ppm cease to have any meaningful additional effect on atmospheric temperature.
Engineer 2: Uh, stupid, there is no greenhouse effect. Our atmosphere ain’t no glass tube in a lab. So, you can take your “greenhouse effect” and shove it up your…
Engineer 1: You’re not an engineer
Engineer 2: No, you’re not.
…and etc…

3.0 Discourse on the Subject of Solar-Driven Climate vs ENSO-Driven Climate
Classroom Lecturer 1: You are all wrong. It’s been the sun this whole time. I switched arguments while your back was turned. That’s what makes this so funny!
Classroom Lecturer 2: This is where you’re mistaken. I’ve built up an immunity to solar arguments. It’s ENSO.
Classroom Lecturer 1: Strong! But I have a confession to make, I have a paper.
Classroom Lecturer 2: ENSO
Classroom Lecturer 1: Stop saying that…look at all these other papers.
Classroom Lecturer 2: Oh my sweet ENSO! What have I done?

Please let me know if I’ve missed any sub-topics, and I’ll be glad to revise the above.

You began the unscientific as hominem tone, showing totally unjustified sense of certainty and were unwarrantedly condescending. You were out of line. I responded in kind. Where do you get off lecturing me on writing like a scientist? Besides which, how should I react when you dodge the very request you made of me and reply so lamely to my first example, after coming off as so superior, imagining that you could school me in climatology, when all you had was “your gut”?

You have yet to produce a single paper supporting your baseless assertion that the sun plays no role in climate, as you required of me and which request I answered four times over. You present nothing but more unfounded assertions. If you imagine that even one of the supposed hundreds of papers on intrinsic weather patterns supports your view, then let’s see it and your argument for how it offers this support.

Climate is the long term average of weather. If you imagine that climatic patterns just happen without any underlying causes, please show why you think so, based upon peer reviewed papers.

I presented evidence that the ENSO is solar influenced. You have shown nothing to support your claim that the PDO is driven by ENSO. In fact, both oscillations are part of the same system, as you’d know if you had ever actually studied either phenomenon. Nor have you demonstrated that these oceanic oscillations are not under solar influence, among other lesser causes.

What makes you think that the Gleissberg Cycle is not valid? It might or might not be, but you yet again present no evidence for your baseless claim. Show your evidence and reasoning. Some of the papers from the past few years I presented demonstrate that real experts consider it genuine. They’re experts and you obviously are not. The burden of proof is on you.

I’m positive I know a lot more about Milankovitch Cycles than you do. Precession could be considered a wobble, and maybe even tilt. I wouldn’t apply that term to eccentricity or inclination, but OK, if you want to. To answer your question, experts disagree over the most important parameter, but IMO it’s eccentricity, which is why the Holocene might be another super (multi-precessional cycle) interglacial. IMO eccentricity controls the 100K glacial cycle, but might not rule interglacials. The parameters must be considered in conjunction.

But once more I respond to your question without your answering mine. So yet again, how can you categorically deny solar influence on climate at the 1000 and 100 years orders of magnitude, when Milankovitch Cycles, which rule climate on the scale of 100K and 10K years, are based upon insolation?

Should you wish to educate yourself about the relationship between the PDO and ENSO beyond the misinformation and misconceptions you seem to have acquired on this blog, here’s a good place to start, from U Dub, 2009:

It provides data without much in the way of hypothesis as to causes of and relationships between the two oscillations. Note however that El Niños are more common during the warm or positive phase of the PDO (when the west Pacific cools and part of the eastern ocean warms) and La Niñas during its cool or negative phase.

This is not even really a teleconnection, since the temperate North Pacific and tropical Pacific are obviously in direct contact. Hence, I would have thought it equally obvious that the two oscillations are related, such that they can’t be regarded as entirely separate phenomena, with ENSO somehow in control. ENSO was observed in the 16th century and the PDO not until the 20th, but historical priority doesn’t bestow on the tropical oscillation any physical primacy. But if you imagine that it rules, please, as above, provide some evidence in support of this assertion.

Alan Robertson The Lorentz paper does indeed show that numerical modelling is impossible.
The modelling approach is inherently of no value for predicting future temperature with any calculable certainty because of the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions of a sufficiently fine grained spatio-temporal grid of a large number of variables with sufficient precision prior to multiple iterations. For a complete discussion of this see Essex:

Models are often tuned by running them backwards against several decades of observation, this is
much too short a period to correlate outputs with observation when the controlling natural quasi-periodicities of most interest are in the centennial and especially in the key millennial range. Tuning to these longer periodicities is beyond any computing capacity when using reductionist models with a large number of variables unless these long wave natural periodicities are somehow built into the model structure ab initio
Interestingly ,however Lorentz does admit the possibility of skillful lomg term forecasting based on quasi-periodicities in analogous states. Since everything only happens once in the real world I would amend that to read quasi-analogous states. For discussion of all this see.

“There’s enough kinetic energy stored in ocean currents to drives the world;s economy. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy, that’s why. There’s enough energy in lightning strikes all over the world to provide energy for many major cities. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy. There’s enough kinetic energy stored in the moon as it orbits the earth to run the world’s economy for centuries. Why don’t we use that? Because it isn’t practical to harvest the energy.

All of which you would know if you had the first clue about physics, but you would prefer to continue commenting in this forum and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you not only don’t understand the physics, you don’t WANT to understand the physics. You just want to rant on as if you do.”

You simply don’t have a clue what we’re talking about here, do you David? Why I said “Yeah. That’s the reason.” It’s not because it’s impractical to harvest the atmospheric ‘back radiation’ energy. It’s because it’s impossible. Physically impossible.

You only need to know the laws of thermodynamics to understand this.

What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the heat transferred to it minus the work done by it.

The surface cannot itself perform any work on its surroundings. So more heat in in this case directly gives an increase in internal energy (and thus a rising temperature).

You seem to argue that the DWLWIR is a separate energy flux down to the surface from the atmosphere essentially equal in general properties (an equivalent flux) to the solar flux, only within a different frequency range. You would ADD the two together to get a total INPUT of radiative energy to the surface, wouldn’t you? And thus raise its internal energy more.

Completely conflating HEAT (energy transferred from hot to cold as a result of the temperature difference) with thermal radiant emittance by a ‘surface’.

For a photovoltaic cell at ambient temperature, how do you suggest we harvest the DWLWIR energy from the atmospere above when there is always more UWLWIR moving out? How do you suggest the DWLWIR in this way will manage to increase the internal energy (U) of the photovoltaic cell? If we don’t first (artificially) cool the cell to become colder than the air above?

Why isn’t it heat? Because it is simply ONE PART of an integrated, continuous energy exchange between surface and air, the other (opposing) part being the larger UWLWIR. The net of the two is the heat. You cannot just choose to leave the one out to make the other one work as if it were alone in the exchange. They’re inseparable. They make up the same radiation field. You can’t just pick one and pretend it works by itself as if it were a real heat flux. Like the solar flux. Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.

The heat, the ‘net energy’, is the actual, detectable transfer of energy between the two bodies. Decreasing the U of the warmer one, increasing the U of the cooler one.

The kinetic energy of the oceans that you’re talking about can easily do work. The currents move things. There are wave and tide power plants around. Not many, and they’re not incredibly cost-effective. But it is at least being tested and shown to work in principle. This energy is possible to harness. Because we’re talking about real transfers of energy. In this case it’s ALL about the practicality and economics. When it comes to ‘atmospheric back radiation’ it’s all down to pure physical principles. It’s just not physically possible.

What makes you think I don’t know what a petard is? While Shakespeare uses “with”, “on” is perfectly acceptable, if you know what a petard looks like and how it was used. So is “by”. “On” is most appropriate if the petardier were leaning over the device when it detonated prematurely. “With” or “by” works if he happened to be close to but not over the charge when it went off.

“I presented evidence that the ENSO is solar influenced. You have shown nothing to support your claim that the PDO is driven by ENSO. In fact, both oscillations are part of the same system, as you’d know if you had ever actually studied either phenomenon. Nor have you demonstrated that these oceanic oscillations are not under solar influence, among other lesser causes.”

Indeed.

Actually, I think people should drop the whole PDO hangup thing and widen their scope to include the entire spectrum of Pacific variability. PDO hasn’t even been the main SSTa pattern in the North Pacific since 1988/89.

The 25 years of modern global warming started abruptly in 1976/77 with the Great Pacific Climate Shift. This shift is definitely best expressed by the marked PDO phase flip occurring at just this time. And the following global warming step of 1979 directly resulted from it. But what caused this Pacific Climate Shift in the first place was the sudden drop in SOI (the pressure gradient from east to west across the tropical/subtropical Pacific basin), flattening the thermocline.

What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO.

The ENSO process does not cause the ocean cycle. But the ENSO process is surely what produces the multidecadal cooling and warming observed during the various up (‘positive’) and down (‘negative’) stages of it. ENSO is the executor. It is a caused cause of global warming (and cooling).

“The 25 years of modern global warming started abruptly in 1976/77 with the Great Pacific Climate Shift. This shift is definitely best expressed by the marked PDO phase flip occurring at just this time. And the following global warming step of 1979 directly resulted from it. But what caused this Pacific Climate Shift in the first place was the sudden drop in SOI (the pressure gradient from east to west across the tropical/subtropical Pacific basin), flattening the thermocline.

What, then, caused the drop in SOI? Who knows? But it wasn’t ENSO. And it wasn’t PDO.”

Right, right, and wrong. It isn’t heat or work, it is an energy flux. We can measure it, we can measure the heat it creates and we can measure the work it does. That doesn’t make it practical as a way to generate electricity. Your entire argument is based on a complete lack of understanding of the physics, and as for what engineers know, I know a rather large number of them, and they are in general agreement that you are, as Einstein would put it, “not right, not even wrong”.

But I’ve discovered that explaining facts to you, simple things like pointing out that the earth is warmer than the moon despite getting the exact same amount of insolation, it fruitless. You have a belief system, and you cling to it in a fashion that makes warmists look almost logical. Pretty sad. Goodbye.

Agree. It might be OK to claim that “weather patterns” just happen, but regular changes in climate, the 30 year and longer average of weather, have causes which require explanation.

IMO the ultimate cause for changes in SOI (Southern Oscillation Index) and comparable phenomena in other ocean basins is solar activity, but not the sole cause. Only Marxist-minded enemies of humanity like the Climate Change Team believe in the One Great Cause (CO2 and destroying the West). But in as much as there is a primary cause of climate change, the preponderance of evidence in the presently admittedly limited, infantile state of our understanding, it appears to be solar activity.

Confidence is high that this is so on the scale of tens and hundreds of thousands of years, but less so for tens, hundreds and thousands of years, for which orders of magnitude the evidence is nonetheless still convincing, IMO, and growing. Climatology has been set back one or two generations by the CO2 mafia and inadequate at best computer modeling.

Here for instance is just one paper (2008) finding an association between these oscillations and solar activity, to include the SOI.

If anything, as I noted, the PDO controls the frequency of El Niños and La Niñas in the ENSO, not the other way around, which I should have thought would be obvious, since there are a number of ENSO swings in any one PDO phase.

Bob has been asked what he thinks causes the ENSO, but in the only responses I’ve seen he talks about proximate “causes”, such as wind shifts, rather than ultimate causes. If I’ve missed that discussion, I’d be happy for him to present his view on what might cause observed atmospheric and oceanic oscillations on the scale not just of years, as with ENSO, but decades (as with the PDO and AMO), centuries (as with the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period, etc) and millennia (as with the Holocene Climatic Optimum), possibly such as solar or seismic activity, or maybe even GHG concentrations.

A recent paper found at high confidence that the AMO was driven by some external forcings, but couldn’t distinguish solar from volcanic on the time scale of the study.

Is the unexpected decrease in water vapor the cause of the decrease in downwelling IR?
=================
only unexpected if you ignore partial pressure of gas law. add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O will be reduced. basic chemistry. adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, increasing pressure, reducing the ability of water to evaporate, reducing water vapor until mass and pressure of atmosphere returns to equilibrium.

========================

Off the mark somewhat. Add CO2 to the atmosphere and H2O OR Air (O2, N2, Ar, etc) will be displaced. Adding CO2 increases mass of atmosphere, so what? As already pointed out, this molecule of CO2 replaced something else so therefore, has no effect on pressure. Why would this have an effect on the ability of water to evaporate? The pressure hasn’t changed. Mass of atmosphere does not need to reach any kind of equilibrium.

“It [‘atmospheric back radiation’] isn’t heat or work, it is an energy flux. We can measure it, we can measure the heat it creates and we can measure the work it does.”

Wow. Just wow. I’m shaking my head in disbelief here. This is not even funny. This is just sad. A grown up (and – I would expect – a well-educated) man uttering these words in earnest and with a seemingly straight face (well, I can’t actually see it, so one could at least hope he’s just joking around).

Sturgishooper Bob has written copiously on the ENSO SOI and Pacific climate shift etc.
Like you, I too would like to see a clear presentation of his views on ultimate causes because of his familiarity with the basic data.

I know he has, but I’ve missed his conclusions as to ultimate causes. I’ve paid attention when people have asked for it, but as I said, have seen only his view about proximate causes for ENSO swings, which are short-term, essentially weather phenomena. The strength and frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas over decades, centuries and millennia would be climatic signals.

There are more El Ninos during warming periods and more El Ninas during cooling times.
These wind,temperature and pressure patterns are the result of the net energy flow into the intra -tropical Pacific ocean – atmosphere interface. This looks like it is the main planetary thermostat.
The energy flow varies depending on the net effect of 2 main groups of factors
a)Orbital factors mainly the relationship between Obliquity and time of year in each hemisphere of the perihelion of the Precession.
b) The modulation of a) by variations in solar “activity” mainly through the cosmic ray flux, the variation in EUV and the variations in TSI
The combined effect of a and b raises causes changes in SST and the pressure patterns and also changes in the daily timing of cloud cover and of the number of tropical cyclones. Trenberth says these latter produce a substantial negative feed back which has not been incorporated into the climate models See Fig 2
at

Sturgishooper. Did you actually look at Fig.2 ?. It is from one of his powerpoint presentations. Looks good to me- but surprising coming from him. Could actually possibly be the key thermostat for the whole deal.

Great that he’s backing and filling, trying to cover his tracks, but nothing can save the GCMs as presently rigged, IMO. Have to scrap them and wait for better fundamental understanding of the climate system, which requires both more good data and better analysis. Adding ad hoc epicycles isn’t going to save the CO2-based enterprise.

If it were up to me, I’d fire both Kevin and Gavin and close down their gangs, as too compromised ever to be trusted again.

The most confusing twist is Kristian’s ingrained use of the word “heat”. For David & Nick – if you want to have a conversation with Kristian, insert the word “energy” each time Kristian uses the term “heat”. They both have the same units & heat went out of basic science long ago due its lack of existence in nature. Energy exists. This process (though tedious) will instantly point out when Kristian gets confused. Some examples:

1) Kristian 11:26am: “What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the heat transferred to it minus the work done by it.”

The intrepid reader is forced substitute “energy” for “heat” to check if this is good science and once that is done confusion is eliminated, Kristian then does make sense – here:

What does the First Law say? ΔU = Q – W. The change in internal energy of a system equals the energy transferred to it minus the work done by it.

OK, got it.

******

2) Kristian 11:26am: “DWLWIR isn’t ‘heat’”

Again, substituting existing energy for non-existing heat in this becomes:

DWLWIR isn’t ‘energy’

OOPS, here Kristian’s confusion becomes immediately apparent & one can insert comment try and show Kristian DWLWIR really IS energy radiating from the atm. gas constituents. The net flow is the one increasing universe entropy.

******

3) Kristian: “Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.”

Parses to:

Energy ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.

OOPS, Kristian confusion apparent again. Energy moves two way in 1st law & many ways in Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, universe entropy increase shows the one way in net reality per 2LOT.

******

Kristian – Once again, please drop the word “heat” from your narrative if you want to communicate effectively – “heat” term adds only confusion for your readers & doesn’t exist anymore; you have demonstrated an inability to make sense using “heat” term to at least David & I. More than likely others too. Many would benefit from this discipline. (Don’t even mention OHC… & pray my tags work.)

The fundamental precept of AGW/C^3 is this: Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from around 290 ppm to 400 ppm over the past 150 years. There are no known natural explanations for this, therefore it must be due to industrialized mankind. Because increasing CO2 concentrations cause the climate to heat up, desperate measures are needed. What I refer to as the dog ate my homework theory, “Oh, where did my homework go? Only logical explanation is the dog must of ate it.”
While dredging the internet I came upon this explanation for natural causes that explains it all without mankind’s pitiful 3% contribution in brief, but fascinating paper.

Regarding the regional vs global criticism. IMHO climate is by definition decadal or centennial in time scale, and global in scope. However, the actual weather that makes up climate is a highly dynamic, cyclical self-correcting process involving massive redistribution of energy, massive active transport of energy, is highly regional, and actively changes over seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Each of the “variables” being discussed (H2O in all its phases, CO2 concentration, temperature, pressure, wind velocity, solar irradiance, outgoing IR) for both land, and sea, at different elevations/latitudes . . . each of these variables vary by HUGE amounts during the time interval we call “weather”. During these short time periods, NOT ONE of the variables causes a positive feedback, “run-away” condition even though the magnitude of their actual values greatly exceeds the small change in “average” values over decades. So at what time scale do the laws of physics that govern the interraction between these variables suddenly no longer apply. If positive feedback can not be demonstrated to cause catastrophic runaway “weather”, why are we supposed to believe these same variables will cause runaway catastrophic climate?

Storms are regional. There is no such thing as an “average” global storm. Weather is regional. There is no such thing as global “average” weather. Weather varies from location to location and is completely governed by short time factors – NOT decadal average variation. Since storms actively transport energy horizontally across the globe, actively block incoming energy, and actively transport and dump varying amounts of excess energy to outer space, IMHO the static linear equations that have been concocted to attempt to describe “climate” at any point in time are absolutely meaningless! They are neither historically indicative, nor beneficially predictive of anything meaningful.

“As to the future, the object of forecasting is to provide practical guidance for policy makers. The rate, amplitude and timing of climate change varies substantially from region to region so that, after accounting for the long term quasi-millennial periodicity, I would then estimate the modulation of this trend by providing multi-decadal climate forecasts for specific regions. This would be accomplished with particular reference to the phase relationships of the major oceanic and atmospheric systems PDO AMO, NAO, ENSO etc, a la Aleo and Easterbrook linked to in section 2.4 above. The earth has been subdivided into tectonic plates. It would be useful to have, as a guide to adaptation to climate change, multi-decadal regional forecasts for the following suggested climate plates, which are in reality closely linked to global geography.

1 North America and Western Europe.
2 Russia
3 China
4 India and SE Asia
5 Australasia and Indonesia
6 South America
7 N Africa
8 Sub Saharan Africa
9 The Arctic
10 The Antarctic
11 The intra tropical Pacific Ocean. Detailed analysis of the energy exchanges and processes at the ocean /atmosphere interface in this area is especially vital because its energy budget provides the key to the earth’s thermostat

“It’s been well-established for a long time that you haven’t got the slightest clue what HEAT is and represents in physics. This comment of yours simply acts to underline this recognition.

‘Heat’, trick. Not electromagnetic energy. ‘Heat.’”

It is by not getting ‘heat’ – or refusing to use it – that you let yourself getting confused. Because then all energy is the same and give the same effects. Then all energy is equally available to do work and all energy can heat in all directions. That’s when absurd ideas like ‘back radiation heating’ is allowed to develop.

Only once you understand the difference between ‘heat’ and ‘EM energy’ are you fully equipped to see through all the AGW nonsense.

The palpable phenomenon called ‘Heat’ in physics is a very specific thing. One thing and one thing only. It should in itself be a very simple concept to relate to. Because it brings about an effect that can be sensed (detected) directly.

Still it has a tendency to confound people and the term is therefore misapplied in many fields, and especially in everyday life. Speaking of ‘heat content’, ‘heat capacity’ or ‘latent heat’, all pretty well-established terms in their own right, even in science, even in physics itself, actually only contributes to further confusing the matter. Giving the impression that heat is something that moves spontaneously not only from hot to cold, but also from cold to hot, and that the two opposing ‘heats’ somehow make up a ‘net heat’ between them is frankly a misapplication bordering on the bizarre, considering how crystal clear and well-known the actual physical definition of ‘heat’ really is. There simply should be no room for such confusion.

Here is one pretty standard example of HEAT defined, from “Fundamentals of Thermodynamics” by Borgnakke & Sonntag (2009):

“If a block of hot copper is placed in a beaker of cold water, we know from experience that the block of copper cools down and the water warms up until the copper and water reach the same temperature. What causes this decrease in the temperature of the copper and the increase in the temperature of the water? We say that it is the result of the transfer of energy from the copper block to the water. It is from such a transfer of energy that we arrive at a definition of heat.

Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, heat is transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the heat transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.”

“Heat, like work, is a form of energy transfer to or from a system. Therefore, the units for heat, and for any other form of energy as well, are the same as the units for work, or at least are directly proportional to them. In the International System the unit for heat (energy) is the joule.”
(My emphasis.)

Further on the subject, from the hyperphysics site, pointing to the directives of the well-known physicist Mark Zemansky:

“The First Law identifies both heat and work as methods of energy transfer which can bring about a change in the internal energy of a system. After that, neither the words work or heat have any usefulness in describing the final state of the system – we can speak only of the internal energy of the system.”
(Again my emphasis.)

The same page also stresses:

“(…) the interchangeability of heat and work as agents for adding energy to a system (…)”
(Yup, my emphasis.)

Taken together and in other words: ‘Heat’ (Q) is, like ‘work’ (W ), energy transferred from one system or region to another, directly changing the ‘internal energy’ (U), and thus the temperature, of those systems/regions. And the energy transferred as ‘heat’ ONLY moves spontaneously from hot to cold, as a direct result of the temperature difference.

This clear-cut and unambiguous definition provides us with a very neat distinguishing tool.

What energy falls under the ‘heat’ distinction? And what energy does not? What energy directly causes an observable change in a body’s temperature? And what energy does not?

“3) Kristian: “Heat ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.”

Parses to:

Energy ONLY and ALWAYS spontaneously (in nature) move from higher to lower temperature. This is the Second Law.

OOPS, Kristian confusion apparent again. Energy moves two way in 1st law & many ways in Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, universe entropy increase shows the one way in net reality per 2LOT.”

A perfect example of why you can’t just trade ‘HEAT’ with ‘ENERGY’, Trick. You only confuse yourself (and poor David). All heat is energy. All energy is NOT heat. Simple as that. You need to understand that. You need to keep them separate.

I start to feel more and more like a 1st grade teacher. This is not hard, folks. There is nothing mysterious or novel about any of this. It is common knowledge. Or at least it used to be. Before the ‘climate confusion brigade’ came to town.

First, I got curious what other measurements like this may have been made at other locations and googlescholared a little bit. I found one paper, Raddatz, et al, “All-sky downwelling longwave radiation and atomospheric column water vapour and temperature over the western maritime arctic,” Atmosphere-Ocean, 2012, 10.1080/07055900.2012.760441. They report shipborne measurements from 2007 through 2009 measuring broadband downwelling IR from 4 to 50 microns and other instruments to measure water vapor density and temperature profiles, ice and cloud backscatter and cloud base height. (It is paywalled so you need a subscription to see the full paper unfortunately.) In any event, they present results, in their figure 2 displaying a fairly good looking log fit of the all sky downwelling IR to measured precipitable water and a slightly less good linear fit of downwelling IR to mean column temperature. The relationships did not explicitly incorporate time trends in any way. The downwelling IR was simply presented as a function of precipitable water and temperature at the time of observation, resolved hourly. I found I could reproduce the logarithmic behavior of IR downwelling with water vapor (in figure 2a) simply by using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation for vapor pressure (i.e. and volatility) of water as a function of temperature (and assuming it gets to equilibrium – not true but maybe close) to get the column water vapor content and multiplying by the integrated Planck function output in the IR band as a function of temperature, treating the water vapor column as a black body with surface roughly proportional to the amount of water. The integrated Planck output alone is roughly linear in temperature over the range measured, which reproduces the other figure (2b) in Raddatz, et al. In any event temperature, and through it water vapor content seemed to explain most of the variance and even simple calculations seem to get ballpark fit slope parameters. CO2 was neither measured nor involved in any significant way, except for the outside community argument about whether CO2 concentration may influence temperature by other means. There are issues with cloud cover, ice clouds, etc, but I ignored those.

So now looking at Gero and Turner, I wondered if the trends seen in the downwelling IR might be explained simply by temperature (and via that the water vapor column) trends at the site used, Lamont, OK and not so much with Worldwide Global Warming. Well the NCDC didn’t have enough data for Lamont, but it does for Enid, which is close and I got that data. I only did a cursory look at the mean monthly temperatures for the period from 1996 to 2008 (this whole thing is just a side interest after all). I simply averaged the mean monthly temps over the three months of spring and the three months of autumn for each of the years and plotted the result as a function of year. Well, those values do show a positive trend for spring and a negative trend for autumn. That suggests to me that the trends seen in the downwelling IR may be more due to the local trends in temperature at that site, and less to do with any global trends, involving CO2 or not. (I admit I stopped at spring and autumn and didn’t fool with summer or winter data. Also, I did not look at any real precipitable water data for Enid since I have already spent too much time on this.) In any event, the downwelling IR data in Gero and Turner seems plausibly related to local conditions and trends that may or may not directly involve CO2 or AGW.

So, it appears to me that the trends reported in GT in the downwelling IR have little to say about AGW one way or another unless one can use AGW to derive the downward and upward seasonal temperature trends in Oklahoma. I did not do any calculation of whether the downwelling IR could somehow contribute enough energy to CAUSE the temperature trends, which then result in the observed water columns etc. The physics views causality working the other way in this case. I presume the former case gets into arguments about forcings and feedbacks.

Kristian 3:30pm – Many authors do use the word “heat” correctly & can be understood. Read a paper on Ocean Heat Content. Substituting (parsing) “energy” for “heat” and you will find correct use of “heat” in the paper. No befuddlement. You however show befuddlement time and again. Here 3:38pm:

“All heat is energy. All energy is NOT heat.”

Parsing this shows befuddlement: All joules are joules. All joules are NOT joules.

Please correct me if wrong, but IIRC thermodynamics and thermochemistry, heat is the energy transferred from a warmer to a cooler object. Saying warm and cold leads to the murky intersections of temperature, heat and energy. Again IIRC, temperature is proportional to the average energy per atom or molecule in an object or mass measured, while heat is proportional to the total energy of all atoms in the object or mass.

Is this understanding of thermodynamics outdated? If so, I hope it’s not more corruption of science to help explain the magical transfer of heat from the atmosphere to the oceanic depths, where it can’t be measured or the temperature of those layers be taken, without having first to pass through the upper layers of seawater, with their various halo- and thermoclines.

…”
And the energy transferred as ‘heat’ ONLY moves spontaneously from hot to cold, as a direct result of the temperature difference.
…”
How does one body “know” or “sense” that it is somehow at a higher (lower) temperature than the other body?

Let’s just go through one thing at a time. First the PDO, explained by our own Bob Tisdale but with plenty of links to sources. There is nothing I can add as I think Bob has nailed it and accurately reports the science surrounding this statistical measure.

F. Ross: That reminds me of the aggie physics dissertation based on the thermos bottle. The observed data is that a thermos bottle keeps cold things cold, and keeps warm things hot. The aggie dissertation proposal was to determine how it knows what to do.

IMO Lubos et al are right and Bob is wrong on the issues Motl raised. Also his links from 2002 have been superceded by many studies since then, some of which I linked.

Linking to a WUWT blog post without showing how you imagine it supports your faith that there is no solar signal is literally pointless. Let’s see the peer reviewed papers, which you asked me to provide, which I did, which you imagine support your baseless claim.

IMO Bob has not said what he thinks causes climate change in the Pacific or oceans in general. I have read his thought on what drives the weather events in the ENSO, namely El Nino, La Nina and La Nada. But whether right or wrong, that’s meteorology, not climatology.

As I’ve commented before, I would very much appreciate Bob stating his view on possible forcings if any behind the intrinsic weather events of the ENSO and climatic phenomena like the PDO and AMO.

Labeling weather patterns “intrinsic” explains little about the weather and nothing at all about the climate. Because a weather pattern might be intrinsic (eg to an oscillation) doesn’t mean that the sun (or any other possible forcing, if such there be) has no affect upon climate. The longer term (decadal, centennial, millennial and longer) averages of the traits of these oscillations are climatic, not meteorological. As noted, the warm phase PDO produces more El Ninos, and the it appears that the warmer the PDO overall, the more and stronger El Ninos, such that some (but not I) find evidence that El Nino conditions were essentially constant during the warm Pliocene, before closure of the Panama Isthmus.

So what causes the climatic changes marked by differences in observed SST and the amplitude and frequency of oscillations in oceanic circulations?

That’s the question that must be answered to support your baseless assertion that the sun has no effect upon climate. So far you have failed utterly to do so, or even to cite a single peer reviewed paper in support of your unfounded contention, while I keep showing you more and more in support of my position.

Please respond to this and the other questions I’ve asked. I’ve answered all yours, and you haven’t been able to show anything wrong with anything I’ve argued or the evidence upon which the discussion has been based so far.

Clearly you haven’t read my linked paper(s) showing that longer term solar cycles do appear in the record and arguing how they modulate climate. Your link in any case is far from the dismissive position you originally took, namely that the latest work is that there is no such thing, whether modulation or cycle itself. In fact, it’s a cyclical modulation and you’ve yet to produce a single shred of evidence supporting your baseless assertion that it doesn’t exist.

Feynman is right that science is the belief that the experts are wrong, but you have to be able to show them wrong to practice science, which so far you’re failed to do at every turn.

My whole point is that the sun is the driver. How did you miss that? Are you intentionally trying to misunderstand, or did I express myself so badly?

The PDO is first and foremost an observation, first made with respect to fisheries, that on about a 30 year basis warm water switches sides of the Pacific. Statistical analysis of its phases derives from that scientific fact.

The question which you for whatever reason steadfastly refuse to answer or even confront is what accounts for the primary climatic variability reflected in the PDO (a climate phenomenon, unlike the weather events of the ENSO) and more importantly in the longer term changes associated with it and the AMO, among other climate-length oscillators, the duration, amplitude and frequency of which vary on climatic time scales.

I’ve provided study after study from just the past few years showing that solar cycles at the very least are well correlated with these climatic shifts. You to support your position, not so much. That is, nothing at all.

Regarding Earth’s global temperature series, solar cycles are properly viewed as an approximate 11 and 22 year process that does indeed affect Top of the Atmosphere measures (in terms of the approx. 11 year cycle) but alas can only be calculated, not observed in terms of our global temperature data series, its effect being buried as it is in the noise.

There just isn’t any other credible evidence of solar processes (data or mechanism) driving our temperature trends up or down in the time span we are concerned with. The present peer reviewed papers in the literature that say there is a relationship are plagued with out-of-date solar data and lack of a mechanism that is credible.

This blog has been through long discussions about this issue and has been the site of many discussions about solar indices that fail to measure up in terms of a robust correlation. If you want to be brought up to date, read through them. It makes no sense to wash, rinse, and repeat.

Regarding the Gleissberg issue, it is unfortunate that it is called a cycle. Its title leads to confusion about what it is. Do not make the mistake of equating it with true solar cycles. Our resident solar scientist has had much to say about it. His web site is worth a visit to get yourself educated on solar cycle data and information.

That said, which side of the Pacific Basin the warm water is on does in fact in a sense “drive” weather and climatic events. It certainly affects them. Your misunderstanding of the PDO appears to derive from your conception of Bob’s work, rightly or wrongly.

But the key question is what drives the observed climatic changes in the oceans, the air and on land (possibly even beneath the crust). In so far as there is a main driver of this hydrosphere/atmosphere/lithosphere interaction, the best evidence is that it’s the sun and other cosmic influences such as GCRs, as modulated by the sun and the earth’s orbital and rotational mechanics, among other modulators.

So far nothing you have said has shown the evidence and reason toward this conclusion invalid, nor have you said or presented anything in support of your belief to the contrary.

Pamela Check my comment at 2:05pm above. Bob explains only the definitions and temporal and spatial relations between the PDO and ENSO indices. I don’t believe he says anything about the ultimate drivers that were discussed in my comment.

Again, linking to Leif does nothing. Cite a specific paper and show how you imagine it supports your view.

At least you’ve learned that Gleissberg is valid, regardless of how you want to label the phenomenon. I don’t need to “educate myself” on Leif’s site, since I’ve already read his most important links. You have simply drawn the wrong conclusions from them. In some cases, so has he, as has been amply demonstrated on this blog repeatedly.

You’re still just asserting no solar influence on the time scales we’re discussing without producing a single shred of evidence or line of argument to support this baseless assertion.

You’re losing ever more badly, but, as I said, at least you’re learning a little bit in spite of yourself.

You are correct, as I’ve already noted. Unless we have both missed something, but I don’t think we have.

Bob’s analysis, while IMO worthy, is more descriptive than explanatory. IMO he focuses too much on the weather events of ENSO while giving short shrift to the climatic phenomena of the PDO and AMO. Those weather events when averaged go into climatic analysis, of course.

Judith’s blog has been busy discussing this very issue. While I ponder over the similarities between the stadium wave and Tisdale’s discharge/recharge speculations (both centered on intrinsic processes) I leave it to Sturgis to consider intrinsic natural variability within the outer boundaries of climate by visiting that blog. Very educational and fresh off the printing press.

I speculate that one day we may see the science community extend beyond the limiting dichotomy of “weather” and “climate”, to “weather”, “weather variability”, “weather pattern oscillation”, “climate”, and “climate change”, leaving the term “catastrophic climate change” to those events that serve to severely decrease global flora and fauna.

I concur. Leif’s solar expertise is massive, but his conclusions regarding climate IMO not always most convincing.

Pamela Gray says:
August 6, 2014 at 6:03 pm

Please draw back from the opinions you have formed from reading contributors here like Bob, Willis & even Leif. Maybe you have formed your own opinion about solar activity, but it sounds to me as if you’ve been unduly influenced by opponents of “cyclomania”, whose supporters merely look at the best data & see the same fluctuations in the Holocene as in prior interglacials, & indeed within glacials by an order of magnitude greater.

The best explanation is the sun, & no observations or analyses to date have dispositively found otherwise.

The PDO clearly influences the ENSO, since during the decades when warm water is in the EastPac, El Niños are more common, & when in the WestPac, La Niñas dominate at strongly statistically significant differences. The PDO & AMO are climate; ENSO is weather, as has been pointed out.

But that doesn’t make the PDO the primary “driver” of climate. It is an intermediary force, affecting both climate & weather, depending upon which side of the NorPac is warmer or cooler. It also influences the Arctic Ocean via Bering Strait.

The issue is what “drives” the PDO, AMO & other comparable climatic phenomena. IMO it’s primarily the sun, but with a variety of terrestrial & celestial modulating factors & influences in turn modulated by solar radiance & magnetism. Among the terrestrial factors are plate tectonics on scales of tens of millions & millions of years & orbital mechanics on the time frame of hundreds of thousands & myriads of years.

When does a hypothesis become a theory? if and only if there is sufficient observed, measurable, and verified data to support the hypothesis. CO2 has been increasing steadily, and the hypothesis is that global warming will follow suit. Hmmmm..Houston, we have a problem…the earth’s temperature seems to be flat-lining these past two decades but the CO2 is still rising. Me thinks the hypothesis is false…period. The AGW computer phenoms and minions should spend some of their OWN money to develop their super program that can predict clouds in your coffee…once accomplished, then come humor me with your pontifications about knowing how this atmoshere really works…truth is, you are out of your league…the Earth’s atmoshere is way too complex for your present models. Stop the scare mongering. It’s going to be OK.

To paraphrase Kevin Lynch a pertinent question is: “When does a hypothesis become a theory?” The answer is: “if and only if there are sufficient independent observed events for statistical significance AND the observed relative frequencies of the outcomes of these events match the predicted relative frequencies.”

As should have been clear, the variations in the AMO over just the Holocene are far too great for it to arise simply by planetary sloshing. As during glacials but obviously to a much lesser extent, it’s subject to meltwater pulses from the land and sea ice around its margins (themselves largely under solar control), as well as general solar and regional volcanic influences, sitting as the North Atlantic does astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge & studded with volcanic islands, not to mention the region’s role in the thermohaline circulation.

Any sloshing from the far distant equatorial Pacific would pale in comparison with such mighty forces.

Evidence gleaned from the instrumental record of climate data identifies a robust, recurring pattern of ocean-atmosphere climate variability centered over the mid-latitude Pacific basin. Over the past century, the amplitude of this climate pattern has varied irregularly at interannual-to-interdecadal time scales. There is evidence of reversals in the prevailing polarity of the oscillation occurring around 1925, 1947, and 1977; the last two reversals correspond with dramatic shifts in salmon production regimes in the North Pacific Ocean. This climate pattern also affects coastal sea and continental surface air temperatures, as well as streamflow in major west coast river systems, from Alaska to California.

My thoughts:
The Dr and the Sturgis may talk amongst themselves. Neither have yet to show me anything of substance related to a robust correlation with current solar data (after being corrected for group weighting, etc) nor have they provided anything at all related to a plausible calculable mechanism. We have one for TSI. If they propose a different solar mechanism, do the math.

Both refuse to consider natural intrinsic variability which carries with it easily demonstrated sufficient energy (absorbed by our oceans and waiting for transfer to air) imbalances necessary to force land temps up, keep them stable, and bring them down over decades of time (for example as we see in a series of energy belching El Nino’s with few strong and long energy absorbing La Nina’s to bring us back down again, or the reverse). The link examines the calculations for absorbed energy.

Get to know Walker and Hadley atmospheric Cells that call the equatorial band home. The Walker Cell is the atmospheric sister to what the El Nino areas are doing in the ocean. And the Hadley Cells are the bridge to subtropical movements. A very cool system that works to keep us warm. Or can also freeze us to death. Please note I excuse volcanic activity, though in my opinion has its own long term affects if sufficiently powerful enough and placed within the equatorial band to act as a shutter to solar energy. Even then, it too is intrinsic, IE part of the Earth. It just has a mind of its own.

Regarding Judith’s speculation that the AMO drives this system, I would have to disagree. The equatorial ocean band is the most efficient absorbing band for solar energy (because of the direct hit). But it is also plagued with clouds. Clouds are the shutters that open or close the equatorial band to solar energy. When clouds are banked up against the West Pacific, the shutters open and solar energy penetrates to warm the water column (normal to La Nina conditions). When they spread out towards the East Pacific, the shutters close and the ocean surface begins to evaporate (El Nino conditions). The degree of increase/attenuation of solar energy as Watts/m2 can be calculated. I speculate that ocean circulation eventually carries warmed or cooled waters to the Atlantic (and elsewhere of course). When combined with the Atlantic’s own El Nino oscillation in-phase, the waters in the Atlantic are either substantially cooled or substantially warmed. Eventually, but over many decades, things return to “normal” sea sawing instead of these climbs up a ladder or down a slide. Until the precarious balance gets out of balance again.

The entire leaky imbalanced interglacial system is prevented from permanent runaway anything because of the rather steady supply of solar energy we are blessed with. It’s just that sometimes the Earth decides to run out of gas from time to time and we get cold. Eventually the cold dry air leads to clear sky conditions and our gas tank refills.

As for La Nina’s, I prefer them in spite of the colder weather on the West Coast of the US. Why? The Earth is filling up its gas tank.

I have a thought about our CO2 pump as well. In my next comment. After a long day at work, it may not happen till whenever.

I’m not. You should look for Mosher’s first comment in this thread and then my replies to understand the context.

Unless you’re a die hard follower of Climate Change you may still not understand but lets just say that to the comment “one site”, the obvious counter argument is “one tree” and you should look at Climate Audit for references to YAD061 if you want more information. Its actually fascinating.

“Within the ENSO band (2–7yr periods) the total contribution of MEI to unsmoothed AMOI variability is 79%. Cross correlation suggests that the MEI leads expression of the ENSO signature in the AMOI by six months, consistent with the mechanism of an atmospheric bridge.”

Translated: The Multivariate ENSO Index shows significant contribution to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index and has a lead time of 6 months before it shows up in the AMO index. An atmospheric bridge [such as the Hadley Cell?] is a likely mechanism.

Milo, I don’t doubt the PDO is an index describing the location of warm and cool pools of water and that corresponds robustly to other indices. But I cannot see how it could drive ENSO El Nino’s or La Nina oscillations. Its entire calculation is based on events that have already occurred.

Pamela The phrase ” natural intrinsic variability” really means ” we don’t know why climate changes.”
One of my main points is that you don’t necessarily have to know or even understand the processes involved in order to make useful predictions. Just observe the existing periodicities in the temperature data and project them forwards. As to the sun there ,are obvious correlations between solar minima as seen in the10Be data and temperature minima see Figs 10 C and D and Fig11 at

In the same post I say
“NOTE!! The connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar “activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI, EUV, solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count and the 10Be record as the most useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved.

Having said that, however, it is reasonable to suggest that the three main solar activity related climate drivers are:
a) the changing GCR flux – via the changes in cloud cover and natural aerosols (optical depth)
b) the changing EUV radiation – top down effects via the Ozone layer
c) the changing TSI – especially on millennial and centennial scales.
The effect on climate of the combination of these solar drivers will vary non-linearly depending on the particular phases of the eccentricity, obliquity and precession orbital cycles at any particular time.
Of particular interest is whether the perihelion of the precession falls in the northern or southern summer at times of higher or lower obliquity.”
It is perfectly possible to understand well enough to forecast what is going to happen in a complex system which can’t be calculated numerically because of the number of variables involved. See Section 1 of the link.

Calculations of cloud albedo which can then be used to determine how much energy is being absorbed by the ocean in the equatorial band. It is therefore possible to determine how much recharge is happening. My speculation is that this variation could explain the warming and cooling trends of oceans, which then translate to warming or cooling trends over land through the process of oceanic evaporation or absorption of solar energy.

One more thought on intrinsic factors and drivers. The higher the albedo (reflectivity to shortwave IR solar energy) of clouds the greater amount of DWLWIR radiation. Which means that while the ocean is actually cooling through evaporation, the air will warm up a bit due to the additional LWIR that normally would escape (since it is re-radiated in all directions). Yet this kind of warming cannot reverse the oceanic evaporative cooling that is happening. Longwave radiation has a dickens of a time penetrating the ocean surface skin. It is mostly immediately evaporated off.

“Please correct me if wrong, but IIRC thermodynamics and thermochemistry, heat is the energy transferred from a warmer to a cooler object. Saying warm and cold leads to the murky intersections of temperature, heat and energy. Again IIRC, temperature is proportional to the average energy per atom or molecule in an object or mass measured, while heat is proportional to the total energy of all atoms in the object or mass.”

Yes. ‘Heat’ is that first thing. Energy transferred from a warmer to a cooler object. And no. It’s not that second thing. Proportional to the total energy of all atoms in the object or mass. Heat has got nothing to do with the temperature of an object. It has to do with the temperature difference between an object and its surroundings (and/or a nearby object). The temperature of an object is proportional to its ‘internal energy’. Heat is not something that can be and is contained within an object. It moves between regions of different temperatures, because of the difference in temperatures. And in nature it ONLY and ALWAYS moves from hot to cold.

The climate establishment thrives on this confusion. Just look at Trick and David M. Hoffer here. And Science of Doom. Take a look at this utterly confused statement by Hoffer: “It [‘atmospheric back radiation’] isn’t heat or work, it is an energy flux. We can measure it, we can measure the heat it creates and we can measure the work it does.” If everyone simply understood and stuck to the real physical definition of ‘heat’, took one step back and let it sink in, they would see at once how nonsensical and incongruous this statement really is.

These people simply wouldn’t and couldn’t have a case to build. Because everyone would understand, intuitively, that EM energy from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface is not an actual (detectable) transfer of energy. It is a potential transfer of energy based on radiant emittances, if those emittances were not faced with other and similar emittances inside one integrated, indivisible energy (radiation) field/exchange where ‘energy’ moves in all directions, but where the actual transfer of energy, the ‘heat’, the net sum of them all, moves in one direction only. Like bulk air from high to low pressure. Like an electric currrent from high to low voltage. Always from high to low potential.

People need to understand this. It’s how things work. Actually work. It’s what we see, observe, feel, sense. They need to comprehend it to be able to wake up from the climate ‘science’-induced slumber we all seem to be infused by.

“Is this understanding of thermodynamics outdated?”

Of course not. Thermodynamics can never be outdated. It describes reality. Natural processes. It just is. The concept, the physical phenomenon of heat doesn’t change even if we find out about electromagnetic radiation on a microscopic level. The laws of thermodynamics still stand. They are still absolute. There are no concessions granted. Not to conductive transfer. Not to radiative transfer. The climate confusion brigade wants to pretend, wants to argue of course that it’s somehow outdated, that now we know more so now all of a sudden for some reason the concept no longer holds. Er, why would it change a thing? The effects of natural processes don’t change even as we find out more about the processes themselves, the mechanisms behind them. The effect of a heat transfer remains the same as always. Thus ‘heat’ remains the same as always.

“If so, I hope it’s not more corruption of science to help explain the magical transfer of heat from the atmosphere to the oceanic depths, where it can’t be measured or the temperature of those layers be taken, without having first to pass through the upper layers of seawater, with their various halo- and thermoclines.”

Exactly. If we all simply knew what ‘heat’ is and how it moves, this argument would and could not see the light of day, much less gain any traction. Everyone would see immediately that a cool atmosphere can not be responsible for a warming ocean if the atmosphere and then the surface didn’t warm first and more.

“How does one body “know” or “sense” that it is somehow at a higher (lower) temperature than the other body?”

How does water “know” or “sense” that it should move down a waterfall, not up? How does air “know” or “sense” that it should move from a higher to a lower pressure area? How does an electric current “know” or “sense” that it should move from a higher to a lower voltage?

Energy includes photons moving at the speed of light which does not generate heat until it interacts with matter, latent heat of phase changes from solid to liquid to gas and back again all of which involve disappearance and reappearance of heat between sensible and latent heat and work done with or against gravity which converts heat to and from gravitational potential energy (GPE) with GPE not being sensible heat.

Radiative theory ignores those transitions of energy to and from sensible heat yet it is those transitions that account for the increase in surface temperature above the S-B expectation which is a radiative only equation.

Energy which is engaged in conduction and convection within an atmosphere is not available for radiation to space at the same time yet it nonetheless gives rise to an enhancement of surface temperature.

That ‘extra’ 33C arises simply because the surface temperature enhancement is required for the conductive / convective energy exchange which keeps the mass of an atmosphere suspended off the surface. That ‘extra’ 33C cannot be radiated to space at the same time as it is being used for the conductive / convective exchange.

The same unit of energy cannot be in two places at once or carrying out two functions at once.

At the surface, all available energy is in the form of sensible heat but above the surface a portion of the radiative energy which would otherwise escape to space becomes locked into a non sensible form (GPE) as it supports the weight of the atmosphere and constantly recirculates in a net zero adiabatic energy exchange through conduction and convection for as long as there is a gaseous atmosphere.

GHGs simply allow some of the energy locked into the conductive / convective exchange to radiatively leak to space from within the atmosphere which then means that less energy circulates back to the surface as sensible heat than was removed from the surface in the first place.

That weakens the adiabatic exchange exactly as much as the amount of radiation leaked to space.

DWIR radiating down to the ground is the same as the energy leaked to space by UWIR because GHGs radiate in all directions equally and so that extra DWIR compensates for the reduction in strength of the adiabatic exchange.

Surface temperature stays the same but radiation to space shifts slightly from surface to space to atmosphere to space with the total amount of radiation lost to space still equalling the amount coming in from space.

Hence long term retention of atmospheres regardless of GHG quantities.

*Usage note
The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for?
_______________
Are you saying that those who insist on not ending a sentence with a preposition are up screwing?…..”””””

Increase in outgoing IR is consistent with global warming. Radiative flux is directly proportional to the fourth power of temperature.

Decrease in downward longwave radiation (DLR) in past 14 years would imply decrease in greenhouse gases in atmosphere. US decreased its CO2 emissions from 6 billion tons to 5 billion tons in last 10 years. While US grains production increased 294 million tons to 400 million tons (2002-2012). Less CO2 emissions and more crops absorbing CO2 in the Great Plains. Slight decrease in atmospheric CO2 in the Great Plains? Surprise, surprise.

“How does water “know” or “sense” that it should move down a waterfall, not up? How does air “know” or “sense” that it should move from a higher to a lower pressure area? How does an electric current “know” or “sense” that it should move from a higher to a lower voltage?

Gradients. Potential gradients.”

Or you could say that the entropy increases. In simple terms air moves from a higher pressure to a lower pressure because when the molecules at higher pressure (moving at higher speed) collide with molecules at lower pressure (moving at lower speed), the result of the collision is that momentum is exchanged such that the slower moving molecules speed up and the faster moving molecules slow down. This is no more than the application of probability. The same goes for the transfer of heat.

Energy includes photons moving at the speed of light which does not generate heat until it interacts with matter (…)”

Once again: ‘Heat’ is not something contained inside a body. ‘Heat’ is not something that is ‘generated’ upon absorption of energy. This is one of the deep-rooted misunderstandings and misapplications of the physical term.

‘Heat’ is what’s being absorbed.

When ‘heat’ is absorbed by a body, then its ‘internal energy’ and hence its ‘temperature’ increases. That is the correct way of putting it. To avoid confusion. ‘Heat’ in physics is only the energy passed from hot to cold as a result of the temperature difference, Stephen.

I’ll reiterate the quote from hyperphysics, explaining the difference by rephrasing the words of physicist Mark Zemansky:

“Zemansky points to the First Law of Thermodynamics as a clarifying relationship. The First Law [ΔU = Q – W] identifies both heat [Q] and work [Q] as methods of energy transfer which can bring about a change in the internal energy [U] of a system. After that, neither the words work or heat have any usefulness in describing the final state of the sytem – we can speak only of the internal energy of the system.”

Sturgis 4:58pm: “…heat is the energy transferred from a warmer to a cooler object…..Is this understanding of thermodynamics outdated?”

Yes. This implies heat was over there in the warmer object and after being transferred (poured?) is now over here in the cooler object. So many people have talked and continue to talk about heat as if it were a substance that by hook or crook a corporeal form for heat must be invented in order to save appearances. Try this:

Net energy is transferred from a warmer to cooler object. Zeroth & 2LOT laws are macro.

Energy was over there and it is now over here. No need to invoke a confusing corporeal form for heat to be poured out of the higher temperature object; heat as a substance doesn’t exist. Invoking heat’s paranormal existence becomes a major source of befuddlement. Sometimes authors use “heat” correctly, many times not – the best solution is simply not to use the term. This campaign started as early as the ’50s, it is still unfinished work.

“..temperature is proportional to the average energy per atom or molecule…”

Averages are dissed on another thread. Research Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular speeds which contains some added clarifying explanation for the mean distribution of an object’s constituent particle energies in a non-gravity field. This M-B distribution allows for a higher energy molecule in the lower temperature object to transfer energy to a lower energy molecule in the higher temperature object at times. Cold can flow to hot in this manner as universe entropy is increased; the net energy flow of all the constituent particles will be toward the lower temperature object to increase universe entropy by macro 2LOT.

Bohren 2006: “there is no such thing as “heat radiation” in the sense of a special kind of radiation emitted only by “heated bodies”, “Radiant heat” is a “meaningless term” is from Yves Le Grand, 1957: Light, Colour, and Vision, John Wiley & Sons, p. 4.

Again, to parse Kristian comments et.al., especially OHC papers, substitute “energy” for “heat” term to add clarity to anyone’s reading comprehension. Both have units of joules.

I agree with you. Climate can refer to regional weather when the time scale is decadal or centennial or even millenial. Did you miss my main points completely? The point about drawing global conclusions from regional data? The point about climate refering to long time scales, vs weather being local and short term? In attempting to correct me were you also disagreeing with those points?

Again, my main point was – – -> Unless you suspend the laws of physics which regulate, and place limits on, the transport to/from, and exchange of, energy between the atmospheric gasses, the liquids in the oceans, and the solids and liquids on land, then there can be no hidden positive feedback to cause a runaway catastrophic result caused by a 0.4 degree change in temperature over a century! The evidence for this conclusion is simple: If the positive feedback that has been proposed actually existed then surely it would manifest itself when there is a routine daily change of 20 degrees, and an annual change of 50 degrees. Both of these swings in the variable “temperature” are routinely observed, yet neither “extreme” ever causes “thermaggedon”.

My point was in defense of this article drawing what amounted to “global” conclusions from a long term historical look at very “regional” data. Steven Mosher seemed to object to these conclusions with his two word observation “One site.” The CAGW scientologists seem to me to be very biased in selecting which data can be used to draw “climate” change conclusions. For instance, temperature must be measured at as many sites as possible, then filtered, skimmed, homogenized, pasteurized . . . oh wait, thats what you do to milk . . . well at least filtered and homogenized. While CO2 data is righteously collected at the top of an active volcano above the clouds at only one location and this data is widely cited to be representative of the “global” value as the “ACTUAL” change in global CO2 concentration? Why aren’t CO2 values collected at each of the same sites as temperature along with the largest “carrier” of energy – water vapor? If this CO2 value is so righteous, why not look at the temperature and water vapor trends at that same site? Is it perhaps because the long term changes at that site show no causitive correlation between CO2 and temp? Is there even measureable humidity at the top of Mauna Loa?

My point in defense of drawing global conclusions from a historical look at data from one site, is that, if 1) a similar conclusions can be drawn from one site’s measure of the change in CO2 over decades/centuries, and 2) “climate” is the accumulated broad time-scale look at weather, then the conclusions regarding global impact of CO2 on temperature that are drawn in this paper are equally valid.

For the record, let me state my humble opinions regarding the “CO2 is evil” debate:
1) CO2 does contribute to keeping the planet warmer than for example a gas free planet, However, CO2’s contribution has just about reached it’s limit and changes at this point are pointlessly insignificant. Water is the dominant thermal governor on the blue planet. CO2 can not even come close to water’s impact because it never changes phase.
2) CO2 is necessary for green plant life,
3) Man has been working hard to rebalance the distribution of carbon from solid phase to gaseous to assist in “greening” the planet and helping out plant life,
4) In their order of value to mankind I offer my hierarchy of needs: God’s mercy, Fellow man, Energy, Food (ie green plants, and animals that eat them), Shelter, Warmth. . . . I’d put “Love” on the list as well, but I can’t decide where. We need to keep our priorities straight. The planet isn’t in trouble because of CO2!
5) Championing the elimination of CO2, or declaring a “war on climate change”, ahead of any of these, to me is a sure sign of chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling mental illness.

Sturgis 4:58pm: “…heat is the energy transferred from a warmer to a cooler object…..Is this understanding of thermodynamics outdated?”

Gents, refrigeration will ‘move “heat” from a cooler object to a warmer object’ depending on how you define your system. Of course work has to be done on the heat transfer medium to take “heat” out of your ice cream and exhaust it into the warmer kitchen. I’m sure Trick knows his thermodynamics but it is the ‘little-bit-of-knowledge-is -a-dangerous-thing’ that gives Sturgis and many others the simplistic notion of what heat is. It has become a major incorrect argument among a group of them that insist that the pressure on the bottom of the atmosphere causes the heating of the atmosphere (another misguided understanding of the gas laws).

“It has become a major incorrect argument among a group of them that insist that the pressure on the bottom of the atmosphere causes the heating of the atmosphere.

Pressure on the bottom of an atmosphere increases density.

The higher the densty the greater the proportion of radiative energy passing through the system that can be conducted from the solid surface to the mass of the atmosphere.

Uneven surface heating then causes density differentials in the horizontal plane and convection ensues. That happens even if there are no GHGs at all.

Convection takes conducted energy in the form of heat upwards away from the surface and converts it to gravitational potential energy which does not radiate and is not sensible heat.

What goes up must come down (unless radiated to space from within the atmosphere) so the descent reconverts GPE to heat in the air above the surface.

That warmth returns to the surface but cannot be radiated to space because it is removed upwards again in the next convective ascent.

Meanwhile the surface becomes warmer than SB because the surface is ‘handling’ both new energy from the sun and the energy exchange needed to sustain convective overturning.

The net consequence is:

i) The radiative exchange with space is in balance

ii) The adiabatic exchange between surface and atmosphere is in balance

iii) Surface temperature is higher than S-B predicts

iv) The system remains stable in the long term because increased radiative energy to space from within the atmosphere in i) is always offset by reduced energy returned to the surface on descent in ii) and vice versa.

“It has become a major incorrect argument among a group of them that insist that the pressure on the bottom of the atmosphere causes the heating of the atmosphere (another misguided understanding of the gas laws).”

No, it is the heat of compression as a parcel moves from its max altitude back to the surface that causes the heating. Classical thermodynamics you should have learned in high school.

Stephen 2:31pm – Your bombshell imagination takes on even more than the top post Great Plains, it goes global & remains unfettered by atm. science. Being an equal opportunity parsing specialist since “heat” no longer is generally considered to exist in nature: “Convection takes conducted energy in the form of heat upwards away from the surface and converts it to gravitational potential energy which does not radiate and is not sensible heat.”

becomes

1) Convection takes conducted energy in the form of energy upwards away from the surface and converts it to gravitational potential energy which does not radiate and is not sensible energy.
OR
2) Convection takes conducted joules in the form of joules upwards away from the surface and converts it to gravitational potential joules which does not radiate and is not sensible joules.

Neither 1) or 2) can make any sense just like the original. I agree it is nonsense to state joules radiate. Would be same as “radiant heat” which was shown to be nonsense in 1957.

“Meanwhile the surface becomes warmer than SB…Surface temperature is higher than S-B predicts.”

Matter meeting the Planck assumptions anywhere at any time at any frequency interval at any temperature has never been observed “warmer than S-B” or “higher than S-B predicts”. The Planck distribution has been observed to hold in all frequency intervals, in all applicable observations (meaning no diffraction complications & macro positive radius objects) which is why it earned law status. Do not go outside without proper insulating jacket in Earth polar regions after consulting the latest global surface Tmean report.

******

I’m convinced Stephen’s “Simple really” and pochas 2:40pm bombshell explanations would allow me to turn off my furnace & stay warm as needed this winter if only they were possible in science.

pochas 2:40pm – What you describe is the defn. of potential temperature – an adiabatic process so no energy is added (or subtracted) to the surroundings of the parcel. But sure, I’d like to use your explanation to warm the nearby surface instead of my furnace this NH winter.

You keep conflating sensible energy (heat) and non sensible energy (potential or latent energy) as if they were the same thing.

They are not. Only sensible energy registers on thermometers, by definition.

You are also conflating joules with energy. They are not the same.

Joules are a measure of work done and the consequence of doing work against gravity (uplift) is to convert sensible energy (heat) to non sensible energy (gravitational potential energy) whilst the consequence of doing work with gravity (descent) is to convert non sensible energy back to sensible energy.

There is one aspect of my earlier post whch needs clarification.

Leakage of radiation from within an atmosphere to space (UWIR) weakens the descent phase of the cycle of convective overturning but the effect is negated by DWIR strengthening the ascent phase for a zero net effect.

What happens is that GHGs distort the lapse rate away from the ideal gravity induced lapse rate in one direction on the descent but distort it an equal and opposite amount on the ascent for a zero net effect within the system as a whole.

We see a similar effect caused by the phase changes of water where the moist lapse rate for the ascent is around half the dry rate on the descent.

Despite the actual lapse rate distortions away from the gravity induced ideal lapse rate within the different layers of the atmosphere the starting temperature at the surface is set by mass, gravity and insolation whereas the end point at TOA is set by the temperature of space.

Everything that happens to the lapse rate slope in between is determined by atmospheric composition including radiative capabilities of constituent gases.

Convection regulates the balance between conduction and radiation within the various atmospheric layers of varying compositions so as to enable energy in to equal energy out so that an atmosphere can be retained.

The laboratory experiment of Arrhenius only measured the effect of radiative capability near a surface where radiative absorption of IR from that surface results in a temperature rise to a level higher than justified by the lapse rate slope. At that point the molecule is receiving both conduction and IR from the surface so it gets warmer than non radiative molecules.

If the same experiment were to be carried out high in the atmosphere radiative loss of IR to space would have produced a temperature fall to a level lower than justified by the lapse rate slope. At that point the molecule is receiving the same weak conduction from below as adjoining non radiative molecules but unlike them is losing a portion to space.

The whole radiative theory is based on an observation that told only half the story.

Stephen 5:25pm: Arm waving bombshell. For earth system, sensible energy and latent energy ARE the same energy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed only transformed.

The latent energy leaving earth surface is returned in equivalent amount of sensible energy since global precipitation is in decent close balance with global evaporation over eons; H2O molecules don’t increase in speed to escape velocity to cool the system. There is no fuel used up in this process so no warming or cooling of the global surface Tmean from it – only the sun uses up fuel holding Earth global surface Tmean approx. steady.

Congrat.s – I needed use up no time for parsing out “heat” term in your post. Challenge you to keep it up not backslide.

NB1: see Kristian 11:26am. First law as written is correct in/out for any arbitrary control volume: change in joules = joules in – joules out OR change in energy = energy in – energy out.

NB2: 1 joule = the energy req.d raise T of 1g water at 1bar by 0.24K = force of 1 nt. moved 1m = about the PE + KE of the apple that reportedly fell 1m and hit Newton on the head. That KE was sensible and existed – and transformed from – the non-sensible PE prior.

NB3: Is there more heat in a kitchen glass of near boiling hot tap water or in a Great Lake on Jan. 1?

******

6:04pm: ”The whole radiative theory is based on an observation that told only half the story.”

No. If you want the complete radiative theory which was simply thought up by J.C. Maxwell as a system of sources and sinks based on his extensive testing and even more extensive testing of Michael Faraday & afterwards Maxwell simply wrote out the quaternion format eqn.s. This is still a marvel he could do so. In the simpler coord. system of Oliver Heaviside here they are for a point in empty space where no electric currents or charges are present, E electric force, H magnetic force, no arm waving:

Stephen
“What goes up must come down (unless radiated to space from within the atmosphere) so the descent reconverts GPE to heat in the air above the surface.”

Your description is correct except for this minor issue. By the time the rising warm air reaches its highest altitude, it would have already cooled and its density equal to surrounding air. So it doesn’t release heat going down. What makes it go down when it is already in density equilibrium with surrounding air? The rising warm air on the ground creates low pressure area. Cool air at higher altitude rush in to the low pressure area on the ground.

I closely resemble engineer #2 in your humorous summary. And to clarify, I have never disparaged others credentials (well I certainly never meant to directly question others credentials).

However, regarding the “Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis” AKA “Unicorns Exist”, it is well past the time that any serious person stops accepting this over the null hypothesis (IE the climate is really really complex and maybe we should just buy raincoats AND snowshoes just in case).

The missing heat cannot be found, it’s like a “Where’s Waldo” cartoon, is it in the atmosphere?, nope, can we see it at the surface ?, nope, is it at the poles?, nope, top of the ocean ?, nope, bottom of the ocean ? (sure we can’t look there, may as well assert that it’s there).

There is another possibility; the “trapped heat” was never really “trapped” at all, it was simply delayed while traveling through the atmosphere (at nearly the speed of light in a vacuum) by making multiple passes through the system. Bouncing forth and back, back and forth between the “GHGs” in the atmosphere and the soil/water at the surface until it can exit to the energy free void of space. All these bounces only delay the energy (alternating between thermal energy and IR radiation) by a few tens of milliseconds (“speed of light” X “distance to TOA” X “multiple bounces”). Since the period of the incoming energy (sunlight) is about 86 million milliseconds (24 hours) this delay has no effect on the average temperature of the Earth.

“Waldo” is speeding away from us at the speed of light after a slightly delayed visit here at the surface.

Cheers, Kevin (apologies for any “disparaged credentials” that may have been inferred from my comments).

PS; I still have some Costa Concordia PFD’s available for a really good price, they won’t last past the summer season here in the NH, act fast, I accept Paypal…..

Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed, that work, if done against gravity, transforms sensible energy (heat) into gravitational potential energy which does not register as heat.

That is exactly my point though there is leakage of some of it to space via UWIR from the condensate when vapour returns to liquid or ice at a higher level.
That is why the return of energy to the surface in adiabatic descent keeps the surface warmer than S-B and not DWIR. DWIR only compensates for the radiative leakage to space.

Dr Strangelove said:

“By the time the rising warm air reaches its highest altitude, it would have already cooled and its density equal to surrounding air. So it doesn’t release heat going down”

It warms up at the dry adiabatic lapse rate in the process of descending. That is achieved by work being done with gravity which converts gravitational potential energy (not heat) to kinetic energy (heat).

Trick seems to be confused about the nature of kinetic energy. It is not simply represented by the linear speed of movement in a single plane as in a falling apple.

It is also represented by the speed of vibration of a molecule and its components. Thus a molecule rising against gravity cools because it vibrates more slowly due to the reduction of pressure and a molecule falling with gravity warms because it vibrates more quickly due to the increase of pressure.

Pressure acts against the internal movement of the components of the molecule by trying to compress those movements into a smaller space. In the process, those internal movements fight against the constraining force of pressure and become smaller but faster which generates sensible heat in the form of the release of IR.

The energy carried by the gas molecule was initially set by density at the surface because greater density allows a greater proportion of the radiation passing through to be conducted to the overlying mass of the atmosphere.

Density was determined by mass and gravity.

Once a gas molecule has acquired its initial slug of energy that energy switches to and fro between vibrational kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy as work is done first against gravity (uplift) and then with gravity (descent).

Once detached from the surface the molecule neither gains nor loses energy (unless it also has radiative capability) but the work being done on it as it rises or falls within the gravitational field transforms its energy from one form to another and back again.

That is why it is necessary to distinguish between energy that is sensible as heat and energy that is not sensible as heat such as latent or potential energy.

It is also necessary to realise that work done as measured in terms of joules is capable of transforming sensible energy to non sensible form and back again. Simply referring to joules as a unit of energy is not sufficient because joules also represent the work done to transform energy.

“Since the period of the incoming energy (sunlight) is about 86 million milliseconds (24 hours) this delay has no effect on the average temperature of the Earth.”

That would be true for purely radiative energy but since a portion of the energy flowing through is diverted to conduction and convection a much more substantial delay occurs whilst energy is cycled up and down adiabatically within the convective cycle of atmospheric overturning.

It is that additional, non radiative delay that raises the surface temperature 33C above S-B.

Note that the additional delay only needs to occur during the very first convective cycle. Once the first cycle completes, the system stabilises because from then on the conductive energy exchange between surface and atmosphere nets out to zero for each subsequent cycle after the first.

If one then changes the radiative capability of the atmosphere then the convective cycle simply adjusts to negate the effect and thereby keep the system stable.

More radiation to space from within the atmosphere leads to correspondingly less radiation to space from the surface and vice versa because the adjustment in the rate of convective overturning regulates the supply of kinetic energy back to the surface from the atmospheric reservoir of gravitational potential energy.

One of my first posts on this site, many many years ago was to postulate upon the point you raise.

It is not 24 hours. On average, each slug of sunshine is received every 12 hours.

So the issue is whether during the ‘night’ when no solar energy is received, does the planet have enough time to dump any ‘excess’ energy to space, before it receives its next slug of sunshine.

If it does, then there is a good argument that all GHGs do is to delay the time when the coldest part of the ‘night’ is reached. Whether that delay is by fractions of a second, seconds or even minutes would appear to be of little concern.

Of course, ading more GHGs may add further to the delay, but if the delay is measured in fractions of a second, seconds or even minutes, if the delay were to be doubled or trippled, it would still be of no concern.

It only becomes of concern if the planet has been unable to dump the excess energy by the time it receives the next charge of solar irradiance.

Een then there may be a reset button, namely totally cloudless skies in winter when vast amounts of excess energy can be dumped to space.

1. The more GHG at TOA, the more efficient energy can be radiated to space. This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to cooling.
2 The more GHGs in the atmosphere, the less solar irradiance is received at the surface since some part (admittedly a small part) of the solar irradiance is ‘blocked’ by being radiated upwards and away from the surface. This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to coooling (admittedly only slight cooling in view of the incoming wavelength of solar to which GHGs are largely transparent).
3 The more GHGs in the atmosphere, the more outward LWIR from the surface is ‘blocked’ and reradiated to the surface, rather than going straight to TOA where it would be (more) efficiently radiated to space (I say more efficiently because of 1 above). This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to warming.

In summary, it appears that there are 2 cooling facets and 1 warming facet, so the issue is whether 3 is greater than 1 + 2? When considering this, one must bear in mind that 2 is small.

That then leads one to consider whether GHGs ‘block’ or ‘trap’ energy, or do they simply delay energy transfer. Do GHGs simply impede the path of an out going photon on its way from the surface to TOA and thence to space?

There is a strong argument that that is all that GHGs do, and in which case, the comment of KevinK (August 7, 2014 at 8:27 pm) and my comment (richard verney August 7, 2014 at 11:59 pm) may be pertinent.

“Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed, that work, if done against gravity, transforms sensible energy (heat) into gravitational potential energy which does not register as heat.”

Stephen,

Please stop perpetuating the confusion surrounding the ‘heat’ term (and here also the ‘work’ term). By using it the way you do, you’re giving the AGW proponents a convenient free card from having to face up to their central flaw, the basic assumption that energy in nature can be transferred to give an increase in internal energy also from cold to hot.

The way you’re using the ‘heat’ term, I can actually – and I hate to say this – see why Trick would advocate for dropping it altogether. It has lost its distinct physical meaning, it’s unambiguity. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Or at least several things according to situation. And by that it has completely lost its power and usefullness.

‘HEAT’ IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE OR IS CONTAINED WITHIN A SYSTEM. It is only energy passing between systems or regions as a result of a difference in temperature. It is a dynamic property, not a static one.

In other words, kinetic energy is NOT heat. Kinetic energy is contained within a system. ‘Heat’ (Q) isn’t. Kinetic energy is the ‘internal energy’ (U) giving the system it’s temperature.

I see now why you don’t get the adiabatic process, Stephen. Because you are simply unable to differentiate between ‘energy transfer’ and ‘heat transfer’ from/to a parcel of air. You think that since an adiabatic process is defined as a process where no ‘heat’ (Q) is exchanged across the boundary of the system (parcel), then no ‘energy’ can pass in to and out of it. As I (and others) have pointed out to you so many times, a parcel of air rising cools EXACTLY because there is a loss of internal energy (U), just not from Q (‘heat’ transferred), but from W (‘work’ done). The ‘work’ is done by the rising parcel on the surrounding/overlying air by expanding into it.

One more time: “Zemansky points to the First Law of Thermodynamics [ΔU = Q – W] as a clarifying relationship. The First Law identifies both heat [Q] and work [W] as methods of energy transfer which can bring about a change in the internal energy [U] of a system. After that, neither the words work or heat have any usefulness in describing the final state of the system – we can speak only of the internal energy of the system.”

And: “Adiabatic cooling occurs when the pressure of a substance is decreased as it does work on its surroundings. (…) When the pressure applied on a parcel of air decreases, the air in the parcel is allowed to expand; as the volume increases, the temperature falls and internal energy decreases.” “An adiabatic transfer is a transfer of energy as work across an adiabatic wall or sector of a boundary.”

Here’s the reason why you shouldn’t talk about ‘heat’ inside a system, again from the hyperphysics link above:“(…) if you are presented with a high temperature gas, you cannot tell whether it reached that high temperature by being heated, or by having work done on it, or a combination of the two.

To describe the energy that a high temperature object has, it is not a correct use of the word heat to say that the object “possesses heat” – it is better to say that it possesses internal energy as a result of its molecular motion. The word heat is better reserved to describe the process of transfer of energy from a high temperature object to a lower temperature one. Surely you can take an object at low internal energy and raise it to higher internal energy by heating it. But you can also increase its internal energy by doing work on it, and since the internal energy of a high temperature object resides in random motion of the molecules [kinetic energy], you can’t tell which mechanism was used to give it that energy.”
(My emphasis.)

“So the issue is whether during the ‘night’ when no solar energy is received, does the planet have enough time to dump any ‘excess’ energy to space, before it receives its next slug of sunshine.

If it does, then there is a good argument that all GHGs do is to delay the time when the coldest part of the ‘night’ is reached. Whether that delay is by fractions of a second, seconds or even minutes would appear to be of little concern.”

Good point. Seeing how observations clearly show the presence of the atmosphere during the day acts to strongly cool the surface (by reflecting and absorbing incoming solar radiative heat before it can ever reach and be absorbed by the surface), mostly because of H2O in all its forms, then there isn’t much left of the radiative warming effect there is so much talk about.

Also, the cooling rate during the night is ALL about the ‘heat capacity’ of the air, not about ‘back radiation’ or this delay in IR transmission from surface to space.

In a humid environment, there is lots of WV in the air, and since WV has a much higher ‘heat capacity’ than dry air (N2 and O2 mostly), then humid air will cool more slowly to space. Same goes for clouds. And since the air/atmosphere above the ground cools more slowly to space, the ground itself will cool more slowly to the air/atmosphere. It’s all a matter of temperature gradients.

CO2 does not have a higher ‘heat capacity’ than regular dry air, in fact it’s a bit smaller. So putting CO2 into the air will not in this way slow the nighttime cooling of the air like WV/clouds do.

OF COURSE the presence of our atmosphere acts to warm our global surface. It insulates it from the vacuum of space. It simply isn’t a radiative effect, but a ‘massive’ one.

1. The more GHG at TOA, the more efficient energy can be radiated to space. This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to cooling.
2 The more GHGs in the atmosphere, the less solar irradiance is received at the surface since some part (admittedly a small part) of the solar irradiance is ‘blocked’ by being radiated upwards and away from the surface. This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to coooling (admittedly only slight cooling in view of the incoming wavelength of solar to which GHGs are largely transparent).
3 The more GHGs in the atmosphere, the more outward LWIR from the surface is ‘blocked’ and reradiated to the surface, rather than going straight to TOA where it would be (more) efficiently radiated to space (I say more efficiently because of 1 above). This therefore suggests that GHGs lead to warming.”

The point is, Richard, that this is the way the rGHE proponents see the atmosphere, as being completely static. Think about it, what will happen when you have a tendency towards cooling (from radiative emission) up high and a tendency towards warming (from radiative absorption) down low? You will have a natural process constantly working towards a steeper temperature gradient between the two levels. This will automatically and instantly increase convective uplift. Convection is there to maintain the lapse rate. Heat air radiatively and it will rise. To where it can radiatively cool. To space. There is no delay in this. It all happens simultaneously and instantaneously, in a continuous process.

CO2 absorption down low would have to reduce the temperature gradient away from the solar-heated surface to make it warmer (by reducing the outgoing heat). It can never achieve this. Because of the convective response.

Inside a glass box in a laboratory, however, it could achieve this. Because here we block for convective uplift. This is where the misunderstanding behind the rGHE arises: The analogy glas box/atmosphere fails. One seems to think that radiation operates alone. The ‘all else being equal’ term.

“The joule (/ˈdʒuːl/ or sometimes /ˈdʒaʊl/), symbol J, is a derived unit of energy, work, or amount of heat in the International System of Units.[1] It is equal to the energy expended (or work done) in applying a force of one newton through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N·m), or in passing an electric current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm for one second. ”

A joule is therefore not energy in itself.
It is a derived unit of energy, work or amount of heat.

Kristian,

I respectfully suggest that the confusion is on your part.

Heat is simply defined as energy that can be sensed by an instrument such as a thermometer. Not all energy is heat but energy can be transformed between a state that generates heat and a state that does not.

When heat is being generated it is in the form of inra red radiation that can be measured by thermometers.

“Kinetic energy is energy of motion. The kinetic energy of an object is the energy it possesses because of its motion. ”
and

“Kinetic energy is an expression of the fact that a moving object can do work on anything it hits; it quantifies the amount of work the object could do as a result of its motion.”

Thus the more a molecule is under pressure the faster its vibratory motion and the more kinetic energy it contains compared to its total mechanical energy. The more work it can then do on its surroundings (the gravitational field) and the more heat will be generated in sensible IR form.

“The total mechanical energy of an object is the sum of its kinetic energy and potential energy”

Thus the total mechanical energy of every molecule in an atmosphere is the same but near the surface it is mostly kinetic (warm) and at the top it is mostly potential (cold).

Movement with or against gravity up and down switches the proportions between kinetic and potential energy.

Only the kinetic portion does work which produces heat so the closer a molecule moves towards a surface the warmer it becomes and on Earth that warming is at the dry adiabatic lapse rate.

Stephen 4:52am: “Only the kinetic portion does work which produces heat…”

No. Heat does not exist in nature (Kristian nailed it in CAPS). Therefore heat can’t be produced into existence. In nature your statement parses to:

Only the kinetic portion does work which produces energy…

NO. The kinetic portion does not produce energy. There is no fuel used up. Only the sun produces EM energy to keep earth global surface at ~288K by using up (transforming) a fuel (hydrogen). There is so much more you are wrong about also. Instead of long post pointing out where: ….here – process of elimination:

1) You agree what goes up comes down. Conclude: Thermals do not produce energy for the surface balance since they use up no fuel.
2) You agree as much evaporation as rain. Conclude: Latent & sensible do not produce energy for the surface balance since no fuel is used up.
3) All that is left is the EM energy produced in the sun using up (transforming) a fuel keeping global surface Tmean at ~288K.

“So the issue is whether during the ‘night’ when no solar energy is received, does the planet have enough time to dump any ‘excess’ energy to space, before it receives its next slug of sunshine.”

I might point out that the air cooled by window radiation at night is in a very small layer close to the surface. Although we measure the temperature of that layer and call it the minimum temperature, it is representative of only a very small volume of air compared with the massive columns of air that will start moving when the sun comes up. So I would say that the cold layer formed at night disappears quickly after the sun comes up.

“NO. The kinetic portion does not produce energy. There is no fuel used up”

The speed of the vibratory motion of molecules and their constituent particles increases when the molecule is subjected to pressure from adjoining molecules. That is a point that you don’t seem to be aware of.

The increase in vibraton does work both with and against the gravitational field.

IR is released as a by product which registers as heat on a thermometer.

No energy is used up, kinetic energy is merely transformed to or from gravitational potential energy.

The stronger the gravitational field and the more mass is present then the greater the density, the greater the proportion of solar throuhgput that is absorbed via conduction to the mass of the atmosphere and the more IR is released by the mass of the atmosphere at the surface and the higher the temperature rises above S-B.

Stephen 6:29am: The speed of the vibratory motion of molecules and their constituent particles increases when the molecule is subjected to pressure from adjoining molecules. That is a point that you don’t seem to be aware of.

Of which I AM aware. And the adjoining molecules? They slow down equivalently; no energy is produced (transformed) by pressure, no increase or decrease in surface Tmean from pressure at equilibrium Tmean 288K as it uses up no fuel, 1) what goes up, comes down with which you agree.

“IR is released as a by product which registers as heat on a thermometer.”

Heat doesn’t exist in nature, no thermometer has ever detected heat which would prove it exists. Thermometers are calibrated to measure mean of the kinetic energy of the atm. constituent molecules. Your statement correctly parses to:

IR is released as a by product which registers as energy on a thermometer.

“The stronger the gravitational field and the more mass is present then the greater the density, the greater the proportion of solar throuhgput that is absorbed via conduction to the mass of the atmosphere and the more IR is released by the mass of the atmosphere at the surface and the higher the temperature rises above S-B.”

NO. The temperature can’t possibly rise above S-B in theory and the proof is that has never been observed in the lab or in the wild. Planck applicable distribution rules over all frequency intervals at all temperatures at all times for all matter.

Restate correctly when fueled by the sun 3) EM:

The stronger the gravitational field and the more mass is present then the greater the density, the greater the proportion of solar throughput that is absorbed via conduction to the mass of the atmosphere and the more IR is released by the mass of the atmosphere at the surface and the higher the temperature rises equal S-B.

Stephen, you have long shown yourself to be immune to things documented in black and white, staring you right in the face. I have provided you with the links and the quotes explaining you explicitly what ‘heat’ is and isn’t. It’s right there in front of you. You can go back and have another look. And you still ‘respectfully suggest that the confusion is on’ my part?!

‘Heat’ isn’t ‘simply defined as energy that can be sensed by an instrument such as a thermometer.’ That is only a confusing usage of the term.

I seriously can’t help you, Stephen. Same thing with your private adiabatic ideas. You have created your own bubble world where you invent new meanings of known and well-described physical principles and accuse anyone who points out to you what these known and well-described physical principles are actually about, to be ‘confused’.

‘Heat’ is ONLY that energy transferred from a hot to a cold region as a result of the temperature difference between the two, Stephen.

“NO. The temperature can’t possibly rise above S-B in theory and the proof is that has never been observed in the lab or in the wild”

That is correct for the planet as a whole when viewed from space but not true at a surface beneath an atmosphere. We observe that the Earth’s surface is 33C higher than the S-B prediction whilst at the same time Earth radiates to space at a temperature consistent with S-B.

Conduction and convection cause the difference between the view from space and the situation at the surface.

and:

“And the adjoining molecules? They slow down equivalently; no energy is produced (transformed) by pressure, no increase or decrease in surface Tmean from pressure at equilibrium Tmean 288K as it uses up no fuel, 1) what goes up, comes down with which you agree.”

The adjoining molecules also vibrate more because they too are subject to the increased density caused by gravity and mass and the same level of solar throughput.

The process only uses no fuel after the first convective cycle completes and from then on the Earth’s surface temperature attained 33C above S-B.

During the course of the first convective cycle energy was being used up to raise the mass of the atmosphere off the surface. The energy being used came from solar energy arriving at the surface which was then conducted and convected.

The surface temperature did not drop during the process because the energy needed was taken from energy that would otherwise have radiated to space. Incoming energy to the surface remained the same. Viewed from space the temperature of the Earth would have appeared to drop but the surface below the atmosphere did not cool below S-B The surface temperature was at the S-B level throughout the progress of the first convective cycle and then when that cycle completed the surface rose to 288K and the system stabilised at that level.

“In an 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized the terms latent heat and sensible heat as components of heat each affecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic energy of particles, respectively.[50][quotations 2] He described latent energy as the energy possessed via a distancing of particles where attraction was over a greater distance, i.e. a form of potential energy, and the sensible heat as an energy involving the motion of particles or what was known as a living force. At the time of Joule kinetic energy either held ‘invisibly’ internally or held ‘visibly’ externally was known as a living force.

Latent heat is the heat released or absorbed by a chemical substance or a thermodynamic system during a change of state that occurs without a change in temperature. Such a process may be a phase transition, such as the melting of ice or the boiling of water.[51][52] The term was introduced around 1750 by Joseph Black as derived from the Latin latere (to lie hidden), characterizing its effect as not being directly measurable with a thermometer.

Sensible heat, in contrast to latent heat, is the heat transferred to a thermodynamic system that has as its sole effect a change of temperature.[53]

Both latent heat and sensible heat transfers increase the internal energy of the system to which they are transferred.”

It seems that you have slipped slipped a bit where you put the energy of precipitation equivalent to that of evaporation (latent). By this formulation there can be no convective cooling of the atmospher if the energy is simply cycled up and back down, it seems.

““In an 1847 lecture entitled On Matter, Living Force, and Heat, James Prescott Joule characterized the terms latent heat and sensible heat as components of heat each affecting distinct physical phenomena, namely the potential and kinetic energy of particles, respectively.[50][quotations 2] He described latent energy as the energy possessed via a distancing of particles where attraction was over a greater distance, i.e. a form of potential energy, and the sensible heat as an energy involving the motion of particles or what was known as a living force. At the time of Joule kinetic energy either held ‘invisibly’ internally or held ‘visibly’ externally was known as a living force.”

This is the ancient caloric theory, Stephen. When heat was perceived as a ‘thing’ that resided in one body and could be transferred to reside in another. I’ve already pointed out how terms like ‘specific heat’, ‘heat content’ and ‘latent heat’ all arose from that old regime of understanding and became so well-established in their own right that they were kept for convenience. But they are imprecise. And confusing. Because they are NOT adhering to the modern definition (well, even this is now getting quite old, but still very much in use) of ‘heat’.

But you apparently choose to ignore what that very same link says of heat defined (first couple of paragraphs):“In physics, heating is transfer of energy, from a hotter body to a colder one, other than by work or transfer of matter. It occurs spontaneously whenever a suitable physical pathway exists between the bodies. The pathway can be direct, as in conduction and radiation, or indirect, as in convective circulation. Heating is a dissipative process. Heat is not a state function of a system.

Kinetic theory explains transfers of energy as heat as macroscopic manifestations of the motions and interactions of microscopic constituents such as molecules and photons.

The quantity of energy transferred as heat is a scalar expressed in an energy unit such as the joule (J) (SI), with a sign that is customarily positive when a transfer adds to the energy of a system.”

As soon as ‘heat’ is absorbed, it becomes ‘internal energy’. Heat only exists in the actual transfer. Take note of the above: “Heat is not a state function of a system.”

“”Both latent heat and sensible heat transfers increase the internal energy of the system to which they are transferred.”

How is this inconsistent with my account and consistent with yours, Stephen? This is exactly what I’m saying and what you’re not.

But, I realise that you will never give up your private ideas about this, no matter how many times and from how many sources you get to see it in writing that you’re mistaken (or, rather, confused). So I’ll leave you to it.

Heat in an irradiated convecting atmosphere arises initially from the release of IR energy from a molecule which has been excited by the impact of radiation or as a result of work being done on the molecule as it moves with gravity.

Loss of heat occurs when a molecule releases less IR as a result of losing energy by radiation or as a resut of work done when it moves against gravity.

Heating is what happens afterwards when one molecule bearing energy in the form of heat transfers it to another molecule bearing less energy in the form of heat OTHER THAN BY WORK DONE OR TRANSFER OF MATTER. That can occur via radiation or conduction or convective circulation depending on the physical characteristics of the molecules involved.

You appear to be dealing with both concepts as if they were the same thing and I think that is where your confusion arises.

I have taken note of the rest of the linked article but it simply doesn’t apply to the transformation of energy between sensible and non sensible as work is done with or against gravity. It only applies to the transfer of sensible energy between different units of mass.
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It appears that we have been discussing completely different phenomena.

I have been explaining how heat arises at a surface beneath an atmosphere in the first place. That is either by transfer of matter via the impact of photons (hardly any matter but lots of energy) or by work done with and against gravity.

The temperature obtained from the impact of photons (transfer of matter) is what S-B predicts.

S-B says nothing about the thermal effect of work done with and against gravity. That requires the Gas Laws and that is what results in the surface temperature above the S-B prediction and creates the ideal lapse rate slope (lots of variation in that slope within any given atmosphere but it all nets out to the ideal slope)

You have been talking about how heat then gets moved around within the system other than by work done or tansfer of matter.

The trouble then is that your account is incomplete because it omits the thermal effect of work constantly being done with and against gravity within the convective cycle.

My comments are not in opposition to yours. You just need to integrate the two aspects as I think I have done.

If you integrate the two aspects you will see that radiative loss to space is not necessary to achieve cooling with height. All that is necessary is work done against gravity in the course of convective uplift.

Hahaha! I was actually waiting for that one. Anything to be used as a straw.

Read the whole quote, not just the first two words, Stephen. It is very clear (it’s stated in plain words several times) that ‘heating (verb) is accomplished by a transfer of energy AS HEAT (noun)’. Couple this with ALL the other quotes I’ve provided you with and people will see that you’re being nothing but pigheaded here. Heat is that energy which is transferred from one region/system to another (or surroundings) at a lower temperature because of the temperature difference. And that’s it. Period.

A well-respected physicist teaching on the subject (Mark Zemansky) tells you in plain words that heat is a thermal transfer of energy and is NOT something that is contained within a system, it is NOT a state function of that system.

But I guess he is as ‘confused’ as I am … And you, of course, are right.

Stephen 7:15am: “That is correct for the planet as a whole when viewed from space but not true at a surface beneath an atmosphere. We observe that the Earth’s surface is 33C higher than the S-B prediction whilst at the same time Earth radiates to space at a temperature consistent with S-B.”

NO. That WOULD be a bombshell. S-B is shown to be correct for a surface beneath an atm., Max Planck’s orig. paper even explcitly tells us so – that is what his disciplined tests showed. We do NOT observe Earth’s surface higher than S-B; S-B says 288K and we observe 288K global Tmean. S-B works all the time everywhere at all temperatures for all frequency intervals for all matter as long as Planck distribution is applicable (positive radii macro objects and negligible diffraction.)

If only you could read the basic physics (or take a course) and not stumble around so much in the dark.

“The adjoining molecules also vibrate more…”

Well if so then they didn’t transmit any energy to the others now did they, sheesh Stephen. You are so in the dark on this stuff. LEARN THE BASIC PHYSICS. Out.

“Well if so then they didn’t transmit any energy to the others now did they”

Who said they did?

The energy was conducted to all the molecules from the surface. The amount of energy absorbed by each molecule is then determined by density because greater density results in more conduction from the surface to the mass of the air above for a given level of irradiation.

The amount of energy held by each molecule as gravitational potential energy is then determined by the amount of convection.

The amount of gravitational potential energy being returned to the surface in convective descent determines the surface temperature enhancement.

“Who said they did?” Your imagination did, come on back from the other side of the looking glass and start to make sense by going and learning the pre-req.s for a science discussion. Here is a good place to start, test all your imagination can produce against the basics 1) 2) 3) then post, pressure does not produce energy, heat doesn’t exist in nature – so it cannot “arise” – except in your imagination – nor do thermometers measure heat as it doesn’t exist except in your imagination:

1) You agree what goes up comes down. Conclude: Thermals do not produce energy for the surface balance since they use up no fuel.
2) You agree as much evaporation as rain. Conclude: Latent & sensible do not produce energy for the surface balance since no fuel is used up.
3) All that is left is the EM energy produced in the sun using up (transforming) a fuel keeping global surface Tmean at ~288K.

“Earth’s surface is 33 degrees warmer than it would be if it had no atmosphere. A planet the size of earth at earth’s distance from the sun, and in thermodynamic equilibrium with solar radiation, would have a surface temperature of -18 degrees C. Earth’s average surface is 15 degrees C, or 33 degrees C warmer.”

Stephen 11:16am – See the word “would” that is not the same as the word “should”. Quote exact words. Let’s try this: does ERBE/CERES in orbit feel bumps from convection like an airplane in the troposphere? No. Does that ERBE/CERES ever get rained on like an airplane in the troposphere? No. All it gets is Maxwellian EM.

That is because there is no atmosphere (or very, very little atm.) at its orbit and it measures 255K. That’s why that link says if no (or very, very little) atmosphere measure 255K. That’s all. Pretty easy, earth surface atm. = 288K thermometry & S-B as it should be, earth where no atmosphere (or very, very little) = 255K S-B as it should per CERES measurements. Get it? Got it? Good.

mpainter 8:22am: “By this formulation there can be no convective cooling of the atmospher if the energy is simply cycled up and back down, it seems.”

A lag while I am in time out with Stephen. You need consider global with local. Stephen agrees (as you should) globally whatever energy is convected up, comes back down being in ~balance over eons. Locally, of course, convection can remove energy from the surface say in a low pressure system but it is being replaced to the surface by a high pressure system somewhere else. Globally convective energy up from surface = globally convective energy down to surface. No logs added to the surface fire. Thanks for following along. Questions are good.

“earth surface atm. = 288K thermometry & S-B as it should be, earth where no atmosphere (or very, very little) = 255K S-B as it should per CERES measurements.”

S-B is a radiative only equation.

How does the S-B equation get to 288K for a planet with an atmosphere ?

“Globally convective energy up from surface = globally convective energy down to surface. No logs added to the surface fire.”

The first convective cycle DID add a log to the surface fire but thereafter equlibrium was maintained.

That first convective cycle reduced radiative loss to space whilst leaving radiation in and the surface temperature the same at 255K.

Once the first convective cycle closed the loop the surface was receiving the same energy from the sun PLUS the additional energy from convective energy down to the surface so the surface rose to 288K.

The surface then remained at 288K because the additional surface energy gets taken straight up again in the next convective cycle and so does not radiate to space.

1) You agree what goes up comes down. Conclude: Thermals do not produce energy for the surface balance since they use up no fuel.
2) You agree as much evaporation as rain. Conclude: Latent & sensible do not produce energy for the surface balance since no fuel is used up.
3) All that is left is the EM energy produced in the sun using up (transforming) a fuel keeping global surface Tmean at ~288K.

Better study Maxwell EM energy & his sources and sinks.

“Mean kinetic energy is represented by IR emission which is sensed as heat …”

Stephen 11:16am:“pressure does not produce energy, ” “Never said it did.”

Yes. You did. Twice at least in this thread and in the past “due the gas laws”: In your same post “Pressure increases…..for a higher temperature.”

And you wrote “Pressure….generates sensible heat…” Since heat doesn’t exist you must mean energy when parsed right here:

11:22pm: “Pressure acts against the internal movement of the components of the molecule by trying to compress those movements into a smaller space. In the process, those internal movements fight against the constraining force of pressure and become smaller but faster which generates sensible heat in the form of the release of IR.”

Queen’s English is very clear. Get it right, equilibrium pressure does not produce or generate sensible energy. The sensible energy Newton reportedly felt while rubbing his head & looking at the apple was from the apple’s potential energy being converted to kinetic energy.

Sometimes a staff might be used to help emplace or secure a petard to the gate or wall to be blown, but the petard was the explosive charge itself.

Petardiers were to sappers or combat engineers what grenadiers (in their original role) were to the poor bloody infantry. If the infernal device worked, then assault troops, the forlorn hope, would try to exploit the breach. They continued in use into the 18th century, by which time the flintlock musket and bayonet had replaced the matchlock shot and pike formations of the 16th and 17th centuries.

mpainter 12:17pm: “You are neglecting to account for insolation. In the real atmosphere latent heat does not go up and come back down. It goes out of the system, radiated to space.”

No. There is the same amount of rain and evaporation at the global surface; the same amt. energy lost thru evaporation (latent) is returned to the surface as rain (sensible) globally not necess. locally, no logs added to the fire. Can’t neglect insolation logs which drive the global Tmean to 288K enabled by the effects of the optical depth (tau) of Earth’s thick atm.

******

Stephen 12:40pm: “That first convective cycle reduced radiative loss to space whilst leaving radiation in and the surface temperature the same at 255K.”

The global surface temperature mean was not 255K “in the beginning”; Earth surface was molten for eons to start. You are going to have to imagine something else. That 1st convective cycle was MUCH higher temperature than 255K.

Trick you could help yourself a lot if you would get yourself a primer on climate processes and study. The fact is that cloud tops emit at times over 1500 W/M-2 and this the latent heat convected from the surface. This emission is detected by satellite.

Good tip. Offer a suggestion – but been there, done that. I rec. Bohren 1998 & 2006 texts. Of course the cloud tops radiate to space since they radiate in all directions. The latent to sensible amount radiated to the ground exactly balances what comes up globally & what radiation goes out to space is in balance with what comes in from space globally (see p. 33 Bohren 2006). Or a lot more of the oceans would be in the atm. at this point. There is long term balance mpainter. The sun uses up fuel to provide the necessary energy for Tmean ~288K.

As long as the flow of solar radiation continues, the excitation of molecules caused by that flow of energy continues and as long as that excitation continues the vibratory motion of the molecules constantly does work with and against the surrounding gravitational field.

That releases IR as a by product. In common parlance that IR is usually decribed as heat.and is detected by thermometers.

Some of that IR escapes direct to space from the surface and some is reabsorbed within the atmosphere and re-radiated to space from within the atmosphere.

Convection ensures that the total of radiation of IR to space from within the atmosphere and direct from the surface always balances with energy coming in from space.

If a more radiative atmosphere sends more out to space then less will escape direct from the surface and vice versa. All that will change is the speed of convection.

:”“pressure does not produce energy, ” “Never said it did.”
Yes. You did.”

I never said that energy was produced by pressure.

I did say that pressure allows more of the radiative energy passing through to be converted to sensible energy (IR) due to greater gas density at the surface conductively absorbing a greater proportion of the solar energy passing through.

Unfortunately your use of English and the relevant concepts is not good enough to result in a fruitful exchange of ideas.

“The latent to sensible amount radiated to the ground exactly balances what comes up globally ”

Incorrect as mpainter told you. What comes up globally is both radiative and convective and the same applies for downward energy transfer but:

The radiation to space comprises leakage of energy out of the adiabatic convective exchange.

Consequently, less energy goes down convectively than comes up convectively if there is radiation to space from within the atmosphere.

That reduction of convective energy downward exactly offsets the additional DWIR downward for a zero net thermal effect at the surface.

It has to exactly offset the DWIR because the cloud tops radiate in all directions equally so the UWIR sent to space (which reduces downward convection) is exactly the same as the DWIR sent to the ground.

Your conclusion about it all balancing is correct but the reason it all balances is because of the reduction in downward convection caused by the radiative leakage to space negating the effect of more DWIR.

You have to treat the radiative exchange with space and the conductive / convective exchange between surface and atmosphere as two separate loops of energy transfer each of which responds in an equal and opposite manner to a change in the other.

That is the only way to get stability in response to changes in internal energy transfer dynamics such as more, or less, radiative capability within the atmosphere.

I can if the molten surface is radiating into the surface volume & it is. Do you not think the molten surface is radiating? Do you not think the surface was higher than Tmean 255K at that time? If not, you are confused as usual.

“There is nothing in the S-B equation about the thermal effect of the mass of an atmosphere.”

Yes. There is. The mass of the atm. radiates.

“..that IR is usually decribed as heat.and is detected by thermometers.”

That IR is not heat. If the IR were heat, then heat would exist. Heat doesn’t exist in nature; no thermometer of any kind has ever detected heat. Some thermometers detect IR; IR exists. Some thermometers detect KE, KE exists (as does PE in a gravity field). You demonstrate profound confusion of science. Read & understand a physics text.

“I did say that pressure allows more of the radiative energy passing through to be converted to sensible energy (IR) due to greater gas density at the surface conductively absorbing a greater proportion of the solar energy passing through.”

Just stick to that and you will go far; equilibrium pressure cannot produce energy when no fuel is used up.

1) “…less energy goes down convectively than comes up convectively…”

2) “…Your conclusion about it all balancing is correct…”

Both of your reasonings cannot be correct: 1) is wrong, 2) is correct because:

1) You agree what goes up comes down. Conclude: Thermals do not produce energy for the surface balance since they use up no fuel.

“That is the only way to get stability…”

No. You have asserted this without evidence or ruling out other ways. Get Tmean = 288K with an atm. optical depth as Earth and get 255K where the atm. thins out at CERES orbit to negligible optical depth. No wriggling out once you have agreed:

There is 1) thermals energy, 2) latent/sensible energy, 3) EM energy components of the surface 1st law balance: energy in = energy out.
1) You agree what goes up comes down. Conclude: Thermals do not produce energy for the surface balance since they use up no fuel.
2) You agree as much evaporation as rain. Conclude: Latent & sensible do not produce energy for the surface balance since no fuel is used up.
3) All that is left is the EM energy produced in the sun using up (transforming) a fuel keeping global surface Tmean at ~288K.